


Sansa Washed Ashore

by swimmingfox



Series: Sansa Washed Ashore [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Vikings (TV)
Genre: Athelsan, Bjornsa, F/M, Floki's Boat-Building Corner, Game of Thrones - Freeform, Kingwatch, Mash-up, Monastery Lectures, MythologySchool, OldNorseSchool, RolSanStan, Rolsa, Shieldmaidens, Skywatch, Thelastone'sdefinitelyajoke, Vikings, WildflowerSeminar, a song of ice and fire - Freeform, babygoatsforever, probably, sansanwithoutthesan, scandisan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:59:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 47
Words: 110,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2741813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/pseuds/swimmingfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa is washed ashore on a strange land, where people wear furs, fight fiercely and speak in a strange tongue. WHERE IS SHE? Frickin' Kattegat, home of Ragnar Lothbrook, that's where. Expect much Westeros/Scandinavia confusion.</p><p>Game of Thrones meets Vikings. May be a bit niche. Extremely Sansa & Vikings-heavy. SanSan fans - go watch Vikings and come back! I promise funtimes.</p><p>Sansa is 18 in this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sansa Washed Ashore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jillypups](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/gifts), [paperflowercrowns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperflowercrowns/gifts).
  * Translation into Français available: [Sansa échouée sur le rivage (traduction de Sansa Washed Ashore by swimmingfox)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5700160) by [violette88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violette88/pseuds/violette88)



> Soooo, ummm, inspiration hit, with all credit to the mighty JillyPups. And a wave to Bexmorealli. Tee hee. I'll try and keep it short. Ish. (Author's note after 35 chapters: hhm.)
> 
> Who's with me? Guys?
> 
> GUYS?
> 
> [AWESOME CHAPTER ONE PICSET 1 BY JILLYPUPS](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104727551723/sansa-washed-ashore-by-swimmingfox)
> 
> [AWESOME CHAPTER ONE PICSET 2 BY BEXMOREALLI](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/104731527237/sansa-washed-ashore-by-swimmingfox-sansa-is)
> 
> GENERAL SPOILER GUIDE: You need to have read/watched up 'til the Purple Wedding and watched Seasons 1 and 2 of 'Vikings'. The fic takes place after Season 2 of 'Vikings'. And veers off.
> 
>  
> 
> **POV guide: there are three POVs in this fic: Sansa's, Ragnar's and Rollo's. Rollo's is in the second person.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [AWESOME CHAPTER ONE PICSET 1 BY JILLYPUPS](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104727551723/sansa-washed-ashore-by-swimmingfox)
> 
> [AWESOME CHAPTER ONE PICSET 2 BY BEXMOREALLI](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/104731527237/sansa-washed-ashore-by-swimmingfox-sansa-is)

Salt. Salt in her mouth.

A damp chill worn like a cloak, coating her shoulders, her back, her calves.

A wash of sighs in her ear. Over and over.

Sansa listened to them. Breaths, rushing, cool as crypt-stone.

This must be what death is. Sighs in your ear, grit as salty as tears under your tongue. A heart that – 

Still beats. Her heart was still beating. She began to focus on it, the long, distant thump of it, like something under the earth, and slowly, her senses began to gather. Rainstorms far away. 

She was lying down. Hips pressed to something cold, solid. Her torso the same. Sand. And in front of her, a long steel-coloured swathe of water. The sea.

Her thoughts, pulling together, as if being stitched with a fine needle by a trembling hand. She was – _alive_.

In front of her were not sea creatures, or stones, but her fingers. Yes. They were her fingers. She would move them. She would move her little fing -

Oh Gods. She began to remember. Joffrey. His face, purpling. Ser Dontos, clutching his hand as they ran. A ship. Storms - 

A shout. Sansa’s heart ceased beating. _Please let it be help. Please let them not be enemies_. She lay very still, in case it was better that she looked dead. Perhaps she would be, soon enough. 

Someone was behind her, running, coming closer. A heavy tread. There was a hand on her, someone speaking. A young man’s voice. Words that sounded curved, delicate, of stones and wood being rubbed together. A language she didn’t understand. This could only be an enemy.

Lying, still as a stone. A cold stone. Her own gravestone. 

And then – arms, coming underneath her, and the sand tilting away as she was lifted up, away from her death, away from the sea.

***

It has been a long day. Men coming to ask for their women to have justice seen to them, for bearing children by them, or not by them. A man married to two women – so it did happen, just as he had thought. Except here neither of them had known about the other, and both want the other dead. Offerings. A dispute over the theft of a sheep. 

Ragnar is so bored. Next to him, his wife sits straight, her cat-features drawn perfectly back, her hands clasped over her belly, which is the size of an autumn pumpkin. His son. His _son_. 

Commotion at the opening to the greatroom. His other son, the eldest, taller than him and with arms like oak trees, carrying a girl in his arms. He sighs. His son was in love with that other girl, the blonde with the warrior-eyes, wasn't he? Another sigh. Boys his age. He was like that once. He is still like that.

Ah no – too hasty. The girl’s skirts are dripping. She is wounded, perhaps fatally. His son comes further forward. The girl might as well be a baby goat for the difficulty he has holding her. 

No. It is not blood. It is seawater. She is drenched.

***

Sansa opened her eyes to find the bluest ones she had ever seen staring at her. It was as if the sky had opened its mouth and swallowed the sea. It was a sea-god. A sky-god. Perhaps there were nine gods, not seven.

She was lying on a bed of furs in a large, dark room. Her dress was – not her own. It was rough-spun, brown, and rubbed against her arms as she shifted. 

The eyes belonged to a face that terrified her. A man, younger than her father, perhaps about the same age as Tyrion, with a faint scar over his forehead and cheekbone. He wore dark clothes, a shirt with fine stitching at the collar, a jacket made of leather and a fur cloak. His hair was so - _odd_. Shaved at the sides, and long and tied back at the top, plaited in a way that not even she had ever had done. Dark markings on one side of his head. A beard. And those eyes, two turquoise minerals.

Gods, where was she? Were these Braavosi? She thought they were _dark_ -skinned. And a warm climate, one that surely didn’t require the furs and skins that not only covered her but were wrapped over the man’s shoulders too. Had she somehow ended up at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea?

‘Are you –‘ Sand was still in her throat. She broke into a fit of coughing that drew her legs and head in towards each other, and the pain she felt in her stomach then almost made her faint. 

The man put a hand out and his eyes lost their dangerous flash. He shushed her, turning his shoulder slightly. From behind him came a woman, brown hair tumbling over her shoulders and big dark eyes. A long, thick woollen dress, burnt-red. She sat down by Sansa’s shoulder and held a cup, made of some sort of polished horn, to her lips. Warm water.

She tried again. ‘Littlefinger –‘ 

The woman’s eyebrows furrowed and she said something to the man, who shrugged and opened his palms. He spoke, in the same strange foreign tongue. It wasn’t High Valerian. 

‘I don’t know what you are saying,’ she said in a whisper. How could she talk to them? Perhaps she was a prisoner. Perhaps they had been sent by Twyin, mercenaries from across the Narrow Sea, sent after her, after Joffrey was poisoned. Perhaps it hadn’t been storms breaking the ship apart but cannon, from a ship. No, that didn’t make sense.

It had all happened so fast – the pie, his awful, garbled choking, the ghastly, accusing look he gave her as he fell. 

‘I didn’t do it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t kill him.’ And she broke out into another fit of coughing before a wave of shivers, as if she had found herself suddenly in a snowdrift, made her fall back onto the bed.

The man was standing up, smiling at her, a curious half-smirk, glints of metal in his eyes. He put his hands together, placed them at his mouth, and gestured down towards her, before disappearing.

***

A mysterious girl. That’s all Ragnar had said. He hadn’t said how beautiful she was.

She was asleep, breathing lightly. Hands clutched to her chest, as if holding raided treasure. The hair of a true Viking. 

Once in a while, she shivered, a little earthquake running through her bones. Washed ashore. How could this be true? The sea-channel ran long to Kattegat and there had been no sightings of ships. A boat would have had to foundered far out. No one could survive that, end up here. 

The fire made her skin turn the colour of the great summer moon.

Perhaps she was the goddess Rán, Rán who tried to capture men who ventured out to sea. She had come to give her blessings, or her curses, on everyone for the next raids. On you. 

You always said that your life was in the hands of the gods.


	2. Sansa Imprisoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so excited that people like this and that there are GoT and Vikings fans up for it. I am so piqued by Jillypups and BexMorealli's picsets (which I have now put up on Chapter 1 - check 'em). If anyone ever feels like doing picsets, you just drop them by, as I am tumblr/picset-illiterate. I WILL LOVE YOU. 
> 
> Short but regular chapters, as is my way! Multi-POV! 2nd and 3rd person! Past and present tense! I CANNOT STOP.
> 
> Update: look what JILL'PUPS DID! Made picsets for the first four chapters. They're up before each one and are SO NICE: 
> 
>  
> 
> [AWESOME PICSET FOR CHAPTER 2 BY JILLYPUPS](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/105031469158/sansa-washed-ashore-chapter-2)

Bread. On a wooden plate near her head. Sansa lay looking at it.

It was the first time that she had not woken up crying, shivering, or retching. For days she had started from violent dreams, swirling about in a sea of screaming wraiths, salt packed into her throat, her lungs weighed down with it like sandbags. She would find herself scrabbling at the bedclothes, trying to shout but no words coming out, throwing up the water she had been given.

Each time the woman with the tumbling brown hair and large eyes would be there, smoothing her hair down, wiping her mouth. Sansa would lie back, the waves churning in her ears, and fall asleep again. 

Sometimes, as she drifted back off, she would see the two sunbright blue eyes in the corner of the room, disembodied, watching. Once there had been many heads at the door, and soft, curious voices, before the woman had shooed them away.

Now, Sansa swallowed, her throat lumpen and sore. Her stomach made the sound of a small, angry wildcat. She put her arm out, brought the bread to her mouth.

It was dense, black-brown, and had a pungent sweetness unfamiliar to her. Carefully, she nibbled at it. And didn’t throw up.

***

In the great tent at the furthest corner of the village, he sleeps, a low rumble like a great bear, like the bear in the stars.

‘Wake up, old man,’ Ragnar says.

The breathing stops, and there is a snuffling, grunting sound. ‘Old man,’ the great cloaked bear says, his great twisted form rising from the bench. ‘You would disrespect your seer so. You would disrespect your gods.’

Ragnar grins. ‘I apologise,’ he says, the tilt of his head reverent. ‘I didn’t think you would hear, your snores were so loud. Loud enough to wake Sigrdrífa from her curse.’

‘I do not know why I suffer this so,’ says the seer. 

‘You suffer it because we pay you in food and wine,’ says Ragnar. ‘And because we all come to hear what you say, no matter what, and heed it.’ He sits. ‘And I need to hear you now.’

The seer sighs, a sound like a distant mountain crumbling. ‘You may ask. I may not tell, but you may ask.’

Ragnar leans his elbows on his knees, and looks at the seer with the keenness of a high-soaring eagle. His voice drops and becomes serious, or as serious as it will ever be. ‘Who is this maiden who has come to us?’

There is a silence, a silence in which thick flakes of dust rise like summer moths. 

The seer takes in one great breath. The beginning of a hurricane in another land. ‘Of what maiden do you speak?’

‘You know of who I speak.’ The maiden whose hair is like the feathers of Gullinkambi. The maiden who came from the sea. 

A sound of wet inner cheeks, of tongue being chewed. ‘Maidens, maidens. Shieldmaidens, maidens who bear children, maidens who grow old and wise and speak of many things. It is always maidens, in the end.’

Ragnar tries to keep his patience. ‘And this one?’

A dark rumble in the belly of this man who is all magic and seeing without seeing. ‘She is of great importance.’

Always saying something, never saying enough. ‘How?’

‘She will bring danger. She will bring love.’

Danger. Love. That could mean anything. ‘Who to?’

The seer turns to the window, sensing the warmth of the light he cannot look upon. ‘I have said what I will say.’ He holds his hand out, palm uppermost.

Sometimes Ragnar wonders if he shouldn’t just ask the gods himself. Perhaps he would get more answers. He licks the seer’s hand.

***

A new visitor. A man, quite young, with black hair to his shoulders, the colour of ravens. 

Sansa had seen a lot of ravens here, their beaks, jet-honed, tapping at the window frame. There was no glass here. If there was a window, it was open to the air, and the air was cold, speaking only of winter. It was a Northern place, of only that she was certain. She wondered if she might be able to send a message with one of them. To Jon, Tyrion even. No. The last she heard was Cersei, her voice full of thorns, full of poison, accusing her brother, shrieking. _Take him. Take him_! Tyrion would be in a cell, if he wasn’t dead already.

Bread had become soup, and soup had become cheese and apples. Simple foods, but better than she had ever tasted. Slowly, Sansa had felt the warm blood return to her bones, though it chilled every time the bright-eyed man came to look at her. He always smiled, a small, side-curling thing that she knew had the danger of a dagger. He would sit close to her, or in the corner of the room, always leaning on his knuckles, always watching her, always smiling.

But today he brought this man with him, a man with kind, green eyes, who brought up a chair, leaving a polite distance between them.

He spoke. Long vowels and soft, tripping consonants. Meaningless.

Sansa shook her head. 

The man nodded, looked into the distance, and spoke again. This time, his voice seemed higher, more angular. Again, she shook her head.

A mild frown. When he next spoke, the sentence was shorter, harder, small pieces of gravel and grit.

Gods. He was trying to find her language. He was speaking Pentoshi, Myrish, Lysene, and yet she was sure that he wasn’t speaking any of those. There had been so many tongues at King’s Landing, in the push and pull of crowds in the harbour, voices floating up to her window in the Red Keep, and whilst she didn’t understand them, she knew their flavour, as she knew the flavours of lavender tea and of summer lemons. This wasn’t right.

Sansa felt a tear form in the corner of her eye. If she couldn’t talk to them – how could she tell them she was innocent? They were keeping her prisoner, keeping her for Tywin. He was sailing from the capital towards her right now. He would have her head. 

‘Please,’ she said. ‘If you could just let me go.’ Let her go where? She didn’t know where she was. She couldn’t even walk.

There was another man at the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. He was very tall, taller than the other two men, his hair flowing halfway down his back, a dark beard. The fur he wore on his shoulders made him look as broad as a barn. His arms were folded, and he was frowning at her. He’d be the one to kill her, she was sure. 

The younger man leant forward, his eyes narrowing, but a soft smile on his face. He looked to be concentrating very hard. He tried once more, a new tongue, laced and far back in his throat. 

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sansa and the tear rolled down her cheek. 

The young man put his hand on his chest. ‘Athelstan,’ he said, and gave a gentle nod, his eyebrows slightly raised. 

‘Athelstan,’ she said back. That must mean _I’m pleased to meet you_. If she was polite, and did their bidding, perhaps they would be merciful.

He smiled. Another nod, and he turned to the man with the blue eyes, who was slouching in the corner. ‘Ragnar,’ he said.

‘Ragnar.’ _And you_. 

The man shook his head and repeated it, his tongue flicking at the beginning and end of the word. ‘ _Ragnar_.’

Of course. These were their names. She repeated it, trying to copy his sounds. The man who must be Ragnar smiled, cold, deadly. His eyes forked lightning. 

The young man – Athelstan – was nodding at her again. He said something, his hand in the air. A look of encouragement.

Did they really not know who she was? Was it a trap? What should she tell them? They looked wild, like mountain clans, though not as big. Perhaps they were harbouring her for Littlefinger after all. Perhaps she would still be going to the Vale, as Ser Dontos had told her on their dash from the Red Keep.

She swallowed. ‘Sansa.’ It came out as a croak, her own raven-voice.

Athelstan echoed it, quietly, as a question. She nodded. He said it again, sitting back in his chair, to the blue-eyed man. 

Ragnar put his lips together, stood up and came over to her, leaning against the wall near her head. When he spoke, it was light, and as though he was giving her this name for the first time.

‘Sansa.’

The man at the door had gone. She wondered what his name was.

***

‘I don’t like it,’ you said. 

She wasn’t a goddess. You had seen her fear, the tear that had rolled its cartwheel down her cheek. She was just a girl. 

‘You don’t like much of anything, brother,’ Ragnar said, gazing into the fire in the greatroom. He was seated next to it, his wife queenly as ever on her throne, and other men close him standing around. 

Floki was waving his fingers in the flames, as if trying to catch them, as if fish weaving among weeds. ‘For once, I am with your brother, Ragnar.' He turned to you, his eyes weeping black, as they always did. 'Even if he did try to kill me.’ His voice is as light as his fingers, as dark as the centre of the flames.

A pang of guilt stirred woodenly in with the exasperation. This was something he would never forgive you for, even if the gods might have.

‘I would like to find out more about this girl,’ your brother said. ‘Why do you not know what language she speaks, Athelstan? I thought you knew all the tongues. Athelstan the great _traveller_.’

Athelstan gave a shrug, unoffended. ‘I don’t know this one. I’ve never heard the like. It’s not a Saxon language. Or a Romance one. And you all would recognise the Eastern languages.’

‘If we cannot speak with her, we cannot know who she is or why she has come here,’ said Ragnar. ‘And I do not like the not-knowing.’ The words skipping like a stone over a lake.

‘Perhaps she understands us perfectly,’ you said. ‘Perhaps it is a trap. She has been sent by Horik’s family, or the family of Jarl Borg’s wife. She is a spy.’

The flames sent orange sparks into the blue fire of his eyes. ‘Maybe she is, brother. But why would you send one girl to spy on us? What can she do that a warrior cannot?’

‘I don’t know.’

Ragnar rested his chin on both fists and spoke to the fire. ‘Well, until we know, we behave as we should. We treat her as our guest.’

You didn’t know, but you knew there was danger in her. In the hair, licking like flames against her pillow. Somehow, you knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I would at least educate myself a bit for this one. So any gods/Norse references will have a handy little guide at the bottom.
> 
>  **Sigrdrífa** – the name of the Shieldmaiden and valkyrie otherwise known as Brynhildr, but named differently in this section of the Poetic Edda, which is called Sigrdrífumál. Sigrdrífa is put under a sleep curse and is awakened by the hero, Sigurd. Aslaug’s folks!
> 
>  **Gullinkambi** (which in Old Norse means ‘golden comb’) is the name of the red-feathered rooster who lives in Valhalla, who will one day herald Ragnarok with its cries.


	3. Sansa In The Village

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [GORGEOUS PICSET FOR CHAPTER 3 BY JILLYPUPS WHO IS THE BEST](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/105033561543/sansa-washed-ashore-chapter-3)

It was a land of giants. It must be.

Sansa stood in the middle of the village. Around her, above the squat turf roofs, were mountains the like of which she had never seen. Soaring up to the tip of the sky, puncturing clouds. A roaring wind, great eagles wheeling, skirling cries. High up, between a cleft dug out by a greatsword was a teetering waterfall, a fine, spilling silver chain, the necklace of a giant. Everything was for giants here, yet she had seen none.

She felt as delicate as wisps of wheat. It was the first time she had ventured outside after working on standing in her room with the brown-haired woman, whose name was Siggy, holding her elbow. Her stomach still ached, her muscles thick with fatigue from the fight with the sea, a sea that had somehow tumbled her here.

She did not seem to be a prisoner. Siggy gave her looks that were both warm and wary, but treated her well, making sure she ate and drank, helping her regain her strength. Sansa still could not remember exactly what had happened on the ship - only that great storms had come, waves almost as big as these mountains it seems, and Ser Dontos flying off the deck, swallowed whole by the sea. Dreams of being rolled under the feet of cattle, under the boots of man, armies of them, and voices in her ears, roaring.

It was a lowborn village, that was clear. When she had first emerged from her room, she had wondered if at any moment guards would cross their spears in front of her and march her somewhere. Instead Siggy had simply followed her as she passed through a long, low-roofed house like a barn, and into the open air. At first, she had panicked, thinking she was far north of the Wall. 

Many were tall and broad, and their clothes ragged furs and leathers. Axes and daggers dangled from belts and hands. The strange hairstyles were everywhere, a tangle of plaits and shaved parts and beards with clips in them. They looked dreadful, unkempt and dirty. They looked like wildlings.

Sansa had frozen as people had bustled around her, some stopping to look curiously at her. Heads bent close as they discussed her, and she felt so conspicuous, even as Siggy placed a long fur cloak over her shoulders. 

Everything was rough to the touch. Nothing seemed finely done, except for the cloaks of the tall, graceful woman, who was both a willow tree and the curling cat on its branch, and who had visited her once. She was greatly with child, and smiled down on her, blue furs around her collarbone, a dark purple jewel at her throat. She seemed to be the only lady here. So they could not be wildlings. Not quite.

It was hard to be here when she could not communicate properly. There was only so much she could do with her hands, with gestures. Athelstan, who seemed educated, now came to her for several hours a day, trying to understand her. She wondered if he was the septon of the village, though he seemed very young to be so. Slowly she began to grasp some of their words, words for yes and no, please and thank you, food and water. And she told him hers too, in the Common Tongue, and he seemed pleased to know them, and began to bring a stone along, and chalk to write on. They did not seem to have quills here, or ink.

A cough behind her. Sansa turned to see a woman with pale blonde hair and pale eyebrows staring at her, one eyebrow raised. She was wearing a thick-woven red dress and a dull-green cloak with a fur trim. A true Northern look, and one that gave Sansa a dull pang of sadness. Her mother. Winterfell. Her _mother_.

The woman spoke, her voice gentle but shot through with steel. Perhaps she was another lady. The tall woman’s sister, maybe? She said it again, her words slanting upwards at the end. A question.

Sansa shook her head. _I don’t understand_ , she thought. _I’m sorry_. She had not learnt enough yet. Eight words were not going to get her very far.

The woman’s hair was braided along the side in a style she had not seen before. She was very beautiful. An ice-maiden. Her questions came again, at least three of them, and she folded her arms and swept her eyes over Sansa, from top to toe.

Sansa had no idea what to do. Carefully, she did a small curtsey. The woman’s eyebrows tilted. Sansa straightened, wondering if it would be terrible to simply turn on her heel and return to her room, when a very tall young man shoved his way through the clump of people watching them. He shooed them noisily before joining the blonde woman. 

He was far taller than the lady, but there was something in his eyes that seemed similar. The same shade of sea-green and sea-blue, a pride. His hair was stranger than most, shaved very close around the back of his head, and left longer on the top and at the sides. His jaw seemed to have been sculpted by that giant’s sword.

The young man addressed Sansa, a big smile on his face. His hand swept around the village, up to the mountains. Oh Gods. _I really have no idea_ \- When she didn’t respond, he shook his head, looking at her questioningly, but his face was open, smoothed-out. He looked kind. She dared a small smile.

He said something very loudly and grabbed her by the hand, stalking off. Even if she wanted to resist she wouldn’t have been able to. He had the strength of three men. Three _horses_. Sansa let herself be tugged towards the bay, praying that an executioner's block wasn’t in that direction.

 

***

Ragnar watches his son wave his arms about, pointing at the tops of the mountains, the jetty, the direction of the open water, talking all the while. Sansa has her hands folded in front of her as she listens, clearly having no idea what he is saying. She looks almost like she is praying. Like a Christian. She nods a little, bends down to the water to pick something up, before straightening again, her neck craning back at clouds which flit like gulls around the mountain tops.

‘I don’t understand,’ says Lagertha, next to him. ‘Who do you say she is?’

‘I don’t know yet. Aslaug says she is definitely not a Valkyrie.’ He gives her an impish sidelong look.

‘Of course she is not a Valkyrie. Look at her. She could not lift a shield with both arms.’ Sansa takes a step closer to the edge of the water, gazing outwards. ‘Why have you not killed her? Or taken her prisoner properly?’

‘And is this what you do in your village, Lagertha? Treat visitors with such a lack of mercy?’

‘No.’

‘Then why should I do it in mine?’ He shrugs. ‘She intrigues me. I want to know about her lands.’ His voice becomes as light as spring air. ‘So that we may raid it.’

Lagertha gazes at him, her pale eyebrows knotted tightly. Then she sighs. ‘Wait. Don’t tell me. You are in love with her and want to marry her.’

Ragnar rolls his eyes. Even though she is no longer his wife, she will always be his wife. She will always _act_ like his wife.

‘No, Lagertha. I am not in love with her and I do not want to marry her. I love my wife.’ He leans close, speaks conspiratorially. ‘And I love you.’

Lagertha folds her arms tightly, and turns to him, her eyes cool as ice, warm as the sun. ‘One day, _King_ Ragnar, you may wake up with your cock gone,’ she says. ‘I will put it here next to my dagger, for all the good it will do me in battle.’

And she walks away towards her son.

***

The young man was called Bjørn and seemed to want nothing more than to show her his village. He didn’t seem to care that she couldn’t understand him and spoke to her with a sunbright speed until she felt quite exhausted. There were definitely many questions in there, but he was telling her things too, about the sand, the soil, the bay and the small fishing boats, she thought. Sansa smiled and let him. It was better than she had hoped. _He_ wasn’t going to kill her, either.

Nonetheless, she felt only gratitude when she turned to see Athelstan walking towards them, his stone tablet tucked under his arm. She had a desperate need to be understood by someone. She had as many questions as everyone seemed to have for her. How had she come to be here? Where was this place? What did they mean to do with her? 

Bjørn looked between them, said something very quickly, and gave Sansa a faint bow, before winking at her and jogging back along the sand to the village. 

She felt weak now, the air leaking from her bones. She sat down on the cool sand and glanced up at Athelstan, who was looking at her with a sort of calm expectation. ‘Bjørn,’ she said, because it was the only thing she could say.

‘Bjørn,’ he said, with a gentle smile, sitting down next to her cross-legged.

Of course, she thought. Names. She sat up a little straighter, and stared at him. There was nothing for it. ‘Petyr Baelish,’ she said.

He looked blank. When she repeated it, he looked around, and pointed at the sand. ‘Petyr Baelish?’ 

_No, not sand_. Another. ‘Stannis. Stannis Baratheon.’

Athelstan looked as if he’d been passed a sword and had to go into a battle with the Mountain. He chewed on his lip, looked up at the sky, before putting his palms out. 

‘Eddard Stark,’ she said, and even saying her father’s name broke something in her, a small bone snapping. 

‘Eddard,’ he said softly, looking out to sea, before shaking his head. 

There was nothing for it. ‘Joffrey. Cersei. Tywin.’ Each word like a drop of poison, a dagger-stab in her stomach. 

‘Joffreycerseitywin,’ he said. 

The names meant nothing to him. The names of the most important people in Westeros were just riverwater. It seemed ridiculous, suddenly, that thousands of men had been sent to their deaths, that her father, her mother, her brother – that so much had been lost. She looked out to sea, a sea that somewhere, cradled her vast land in its palm. Where _was_ she?

Athelstan was looking at her again, rather crestfallen. 

Sansa heard her mother, then. Her mother’s voice, sturdy as an ash tree, its boughs spreading over her head. _My girl. You are strong, my girl. You are a Stark_. She was a Stark. She would have to start at the beginning.

She pointed at the sea, and looked at him. A jerk of the head, raising her eyebrows. He gazed at it. She pointed again, more firmly, and put her other palm out. _What is it_?

‘Ah,’ he said, and scrunched his mouth up, as if trying to decide between many things. ‘ _Ægir_.’

‘ _Ægir_ ,’ she said. 

He nodded, pleased, and stood up, putting his hand out. 

Sansa looked at him. His eyes were the colour of summer ivy. He suddenly seemed to lose confidence in his gesture and withdrew his hand, self-consciously rubbing it on his thigh, as if he’d never held it out to her, his smile dissolving.

The edge of the sea was a tiny furling lip, thinking. Sansa watched it for a moment, then looked up at Athelstan again, putting her own hand up towards him.

She needed a friend here. 

***

Athelstan taught her several more words – boat, house, goat, fire - as they walked back to the village. Sansa told him her own words and he repeated them thoughtfully, carefully, as if they were spells, before scratching marks onto his stone. 

She was so tired. The wind was cold and she was beginning to feel like the pages of an open book, being fluttered back and forth. Athelstan caught her sigh and tucked his stone underneath his hands, before touching her elbow and disappearing. Good. She could go back and - 

She turned and walked straight into the warm chest of someone. The man she had seen once before, hovering at her doorway. He was frowning down at her, a face like a mountain in the shade. Most of his hair was tied back, the rest falling past his shoulders. He had very faint scars on both cheeks, one curving like a crescent moon from the side of his mouth, the other running all the way up to his temple. As if his smile has split his face. Though she could not imagine him ever smiling. It jolted her into thinking of someone else. Another with scars. Another who never smiled.

‘I am – I’m sorry,’ she said instinctively. 

The furs on his shoulders made him look like a great bird. A giant raven. He smelt of firesmoke, and faintly of ale.

He spoke. Short, dark words, as dark as his hair, his beard, his eyes. She didn’t understand, of course. He said something else, a little longer this time. He looked angry. Oh Gods. He would kill her. Perhaps he was the graceful lady’s sworn shield. Or worse – he _was_ Tywin’s man. Athelstan had been tricking her.

‘I’m sorry ser, I do not know what you’re saying. But I mean no harm. I’m not – I just want to go back to my chamber.’ _Chirping_ , she thought. _Chirping, like a little_ \- 

When he next spoke, his chin came up, proudly. The words sounded so similar each time, she could not tell them apart. There was definitely no _thank you_ , or _yes_ , or _food_. 

‘I won’t get in your way.’ She tried to walk past him, and he stepped to the side, blocking her. Her head reached the end of his beard, his mouth close to her forehead. _Don’t kill me_. She took a deep breath. _'Gerðu svá vel ok'_ , she said. 

__Her words changed him. His face moved as if he’d been lightly hit, and he took a step backwards so that he turned sideways, enough to let her pass him._ _

Her shoulder brushed his chest. Sansa ducked her head a little and walked as quickly as she could back to the longhouse and her own room. _Far vel_ , she thought. Goodbye. And she thought, _I’m not dead yet._

***

She learned too much, this girl with the hair of fire, the hair of Muspelheim. Walking with the priest, stealing your words, the words of your people. Maybe it would not be all she stole. Rán pulled gold down along with sailors to the bottom of the sea, stowed away enough treasure to coat the earth’s floor, from raiders all over the coasts. Maybe this one was no different.

You stood in the path, waited until Athelstan left her, and walked up silently. She turned and walked right into you. She stuttered something, the words of a girl, a not-goddess, a thief. 

‘Who are you?’ you said. 

She didn’t answer. 

‘Why are you here?’ 

She shook her head and spoke. Her tongue was looping and strange, like wool winding around a loom. 

Thief-girl. ‘What do you want from us?’ 

She said something else and tried to move past you. No. It wouldn’t be that simple. You saw a little fear in her eyes then, laced into the blue like blood in a river. 

‘Please,’ she said, and the shock of hearing her speak your tongue was enough to stir you into moving. It sounded strange in her mouth, like she had eaten too much salt, or drunk too much blackberry wine, but it was enough. Your own language. 

She might have been stealing it, but it felt like a dagger in your heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this one isn't too dry! It will roll along a bit better once Sansa learns a few more words!
> 
>  **Mythology school** :  
>  **Muspelheim** – land of fire, home of fire demons and fire giants
> 
>  **Old Norse school**  
>  Really hope no Old Norse experts ever read this fic (ha ha!), but I’m gleaning stuff from various online sources. I’ve decided to go with the ‘written’ spellings rather than phonetic ones, as they look much prettier and more evocative. 
> 
> Old Norse developed gradually from the 8th century -'Vikings’ time - to about 1300, and 8th century stuff was written as runes, so I’m using probably later Old Norse. SO THERE. There were different dialects, too. OH WELL.
> 
> Athelstan scrunches his nose up when Sansa asks him what ‘sea’ is in their language because there are many words for sea (think Inuit/snow). I imagine him weighing up how to explain that to her, and deciding that it would be best just to teach the poor girl one for now. So _**Ægir**_ (pronounced ay-ear) is the poetic word for sea, and is also the name of the great sea god Ægir.
> 
> For info, _haf_ means the high sea. _Sjør_ is another name for sea, nearer the English. But I think it nice that Athelstan’s first choice is a poetic one!
> 
>  _ **Gerðu svá vel ok**_ = ‘please’ in Old Norse!


	4. Sansa Learns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [CHAPTER 4 PICSET courtesy of the rockin' JillyPups](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/105029232673/sansa-washed-ashore-chapter-4#notes)

_Sun, moon. Night, day. Wood, stone, water_.

Every day, for many hours, Sansa learned. 

_High, low. Tall, short. Bed. Blanket. Sleep_.

She listened to the shape of the words, tried to match them to the shape of the thing they named. Sometimes this worked well, and at other times, it seemed so far removed from it that she thought she would never remember it.

 _Bird. Eagle. Raven_.

But Athelstan would keep pointing up, or sweeping his hand around, testing her, over and over, until she remembered it again, and when she did she was so happy that she felt like the sun rising, or the water dancing. She had always loved to learn.

 _Land. Village. Mountain_.

Sansa began to learn the words for the people around her. She began to wonder not who they were as a race or who they might fight for, but who they were to each other.

Girl became _daughter, mother, wife_. Boy became _son, father, husband_.

Bjørn was Ragnar’s son. She couldn’t see the resemblance until Athelstan told her that the ice-cool woman, the strong one who seemed a lady, was his mother. Somehow the two of them together made sense – the pale gold in his hair and the eyes, but the lightness of step of his father, a restlessness, a sense that he could turn into rage and danger, quick as wildfire. 

He had bounded up to her several times, excited that she now could greet him and tell him things he pointed out, but impatient too that she did not seem to know enough. He brought a girl over, a girl her own age, who perhaps he was betrothed to – he would run after her and push her into doorways and they would disappear, giggling, into the shadows - and made Sansa repeat her words, gazed at fiercely by both of them all the while. The girl was tall, strong-looking like many of the women here, with hair like sun-blazed straw and dark eyebrows. Thorunn, Bjørn had said. 

Names, many names. Bjørn’s mother’s name was Lagertha. Sansa had only seen her twice in the village, sweeping past in a long cloak, talking confidently with the men, with Ragnar, whose shoulders would be low, his head dropped, almost deferential. She had not guessed that they were married. 

‘Wife?’ she had said, and Athelstan had shaken his head, and told her _yes_ and _no_. He had pointed to the tall, graceful lady, whose name was Aslaug. _Wife_. Sansa had seen them together, but had thought that Ragnar was whispering information to her, telling her what he knew of Sansa. She had been sure that Aslaug was the lady of the village, ruled it perhaps, and that Ragnar advised her.

‘Ragnar,’ Sansa asked. How could she find out who he was? Was he like Littlefinger, or Lord Varys? Or a knight perhaps? He looked like he would be a good fighter. In the end, she simply put her hands out.

Athelstan, who was coming back with another stone tablet – he had a tall pile of them now, collecting her words, and seemed to be trying to show her his writings more - told her. She heard the words for village, and land, and people, but didn’t understand enough. He put both hands either side of his head, fingers uppermost. He stood very straight and tall, and pointed around him, as if telling people what to do. 

Ragnar was their leader? She made him move his hands again, and realised what he was doing. Athelstan was showing her a crown.

 _Konungr_.

Ragnar was a king.

***

The girl, Sansa, has started giving Ragnar strange looks, like she wants to have sex with him. But also she is making little bends, her head dipping like a river bird’s. 

She asks him, through her hands and some words, which sound like cloth in her mouth, if she may help. She stands next to Siggy as she chops vegetables, watches her closely, copies. It does not seem to come naturally to her. She tries to keep things tidy around her. It irritates him. There are slaves for this. Perhaps she is nothing but a peasant girl, as Rollo says. Mostly she sits with Athelstan, speaking in movements. Athelstan says he is close, that she is beginning to understand more. 

Perhaps he will place her with Siggy, with Rollo. Siggy has looked after her well, brought the girl’s strength back. 

He is fidgety for her words. Soon he will speak to her. He will make her talk to him.

***

So much was like her own North – the animals, the furs, the smell of peat and boiled vegetables. The dwellings were clustered closely together, and goats and chickens wandered down straw-scattered paths, their warblings interlocking. Thin smoke-fires curled up into the clouds. It reminded her of the villages outside Winterfell. 

Sansa didn’t know much about helping – cooking, cleaning – but it felt right to try, after they had warmed her back into life. No one seemed to like it much, giving her resentful, suspicious looks, but she had to do something.

She was well enough to eat properly again. Athelstan invited her to sit with him at the feast table, and all heads turned as she walked with him along a long row of people, though not for long. Everyone seemed to enjoy eating very much here, even moreso than at her own Northern feasts. They ate with their hands, and talked through mouthfuls, food airborne, ale and wine waterfalling.

Ragnar was watching her. _Ragnar konungr_. Perhaps their castle was further into the mountains and he preferred to dine, to live, among his people. Her own father had been so good with the villagers around Winterfell. 

There were more names to learn. Torstein, who was perhaps an important friend of Ragnar’s, or his kingsguard. Hvitserk and Ragnvald were the names of Aslaug’s oldest children, Sigurd and Ivar the smallest. A tall man who moved like a lizard and had startling, kettle-black eyes entered with a woman, also black of eye, and a baby. From the way he moved, sinewy and with curling fingers, and from the way everyone laughed, he must have been Ragnar’s fool. Floki. 

The tips of his ears were black and he gave an eerie, high giggle, before his eyes fell on her. Cold and hot, accusing and curious. They seemed to weep. Sansa looked down at her plate, glanced up only when his dark, piercing gaze had moved elsewhere. Instead, she met the eyes of another man.

The man whose questions had seemed brutal, like a shove in the shoulder, a hit with the flat of a sword on her back. He was watching her.

***

She had helped serve the food, like a slave. That was all she was. And then she sat down next to the priest, who had been carrying that stone around like it was as important as the shirt on his back, and who grinned at her through a mouthful of pig.

You went over. ‘What are you saying about me?’ 

‘Nothing,’ said the priest. Always so bloody wise, so bloody innocent.

‘Don’t lie. I saw you both. Talking and looking at me.’

The girl had stopped eating. You didn’t know why. You didn’t stop eating for anything.

‘I have been explaining to Sansa who everyone is. How everyone – knows each other.’ You wanted to rub his face in his plate. He turned to her. ‘Sansa.’ And back to you. ‘Rollo.’

‘We have already met,’ you said, remembering how close her forehead was to your mouth when you stopped her on the path.

‘Rollo. Ragnar. Brother. _Brothers_.’ he said to her, and her eyes widened and you hated that this is how you were introduced, that you would be thought of only in relation to your brother, as you always were. He was your blood brother and you would kill for him, you would die for him now, but you still hated it. The skein of blood stronger than iron.

The girl looked up at you, and you waited for more fear, but none came. Her face was milk and flour and butter, spread out on a griddle. ‘Hello, Rollo,’ she said, and gave the smallest smile.

You had been ready to offer her ash-words, curses, threats. You were not as optimistic as your brother. It was important to show that not everyone was as trusting. You had to look out for him. But the smile made you turn into an oak, a stone, as well as her speaking your words again. 

‘Hello,’ you said back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope it's ok that these are teeny-tiny chapters. Next one is basically done, so I'll pop it up tomorrow. Ta for reading, hardcore GoT/Vikings massive!
> 
> PS I wanted to ask if you felt you needed POV headings (eg Sansa/Ragnar/Rollo) or if it is ok as is?
> 
>  **Old Norse School** :  
> You put the name first, then the word king, ie _**Ragnar konungr**_


	5. Sansa of Westeros

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the awesome picsets Jillypups made for the last three chapters!

Once, not long ago, Sansa had been fed almonds and honey. Bathed in steaming tubs of water laced with marjoram and rosemary oil. Wore silk, taffeta, velvet. Smelt burnt sugar and rosewater. Cinammon.

Now she was – relieving herself – behind a bush, and kicking the remains under mud. She was splashing sea-water in the furthest part of the bay in her face, and watching children go right in, without any clothes on at all. Her dresses – she had one of Siggy’s and another of Thorunn’s – were wool and plant-dyed cloth. She was eating more bread and meat than she ever had before. All she could smell was goatshit – and it shocked her to think of it that way, but she could not think of a better word.

She did not exactly miss it – when she thought of roses, she thought of thorns, and when she thought of baths, she thought of soothing her bruises after the guards had tormented her in front of Joffrey. She supposed that she was simply moving carefully through this world, a world in which she was still stared at but not threatened, however dark Ragnar’s snarl-smiles were. A world in which she, simply, lived.

Today, there was a boat in the harbour, unlike any boat she had ever seen, with a carved beast - a dragon at the front. _Dragons_. It made her think of someone who had been spoken of much in the Red Keep, in wary tones. The woman across the sea who owned dragons and was preparing for battle. Perhaps that was it, then. Perhaps she was on Essos, after all.

***

Ragnar cranes his head over Athelstan, who is crouched over a table of tablet-stones, piled like offerings, chalk dust everywhere. ‘What are you doing?’

Athelstan looks up almost guiltily and blows some of the chalk dust away, into the air, where it becomes gnat-clouds. ‘I am trying to write down our language,’ he says.

Ragnar looks at the marks. Small shapes, lines and circles, some joining each other. Like playing with the bones of people long-dead, making houses and caves. ‘These are not runes.’

‘No. I am trying to write it down in a new way.’

He narrows his eyes, keeps his voice light. ‘Why?’

‘Because Sansa can understand it better, I think.’ He turns to Ragnar properly and speaks earnestly. ‘She is not a peasant, I am sure. She is educated. Her own language is written. A strange hand, but it is written.’

‘You do not need to write ours down.’ His fingers ribbon the air. ‘Ours is already written, in the stars, in the wind, in the stones. And we have our runes. It is all we need.’

‘I know, but – if I can find a way to understand her, a way to write down our common sounds, we will be able to know her better. Work out who she is. Why she is here.’

Ragnar thinks about ordering him to stop. It has never been needed. Words should live on the tongue, not on stone. And then he thinks of the pointing shadows of his navigation tool. The shimmer of his sunstone, held up to the sky. Invention. Discovery.

‘As you wish, priest,’ he says.

***

Ragnar came to Sansa. He had that look in his eyes – a hunger, a darkness and a lightness all at once. Athelstan was with him, which made her feel better. He was so kind, so patient. He wanted only to teach and not only that, but to learn, too. He craved her words as much as she craved his, and had begun to come up with a way to scribe their shared sounds. It was painstaking, but she felt the need to travel its long course as much as he seemed to.

Today though, Athelstan was here to help everyone understand each other. Through a mixture of halting words, mostly in their tongue, a little in the Common, and sometimes with hands curving in the air, Ragnar began to ask her questions.

He asked where she came from – _hvaðan kemr þú_? – words she had heard before, a strange poem recited by everyone who had spoken to her, and which she finally understood. She wondered if Rollo had asked her that when they had first met, too.

‘King’s Landing,’ she said. It felt strange even saying it aloud. As if by saying it she might conjure it up, find herself surrounded by sand-red walls again, candlelight flickering with threat. However worried she was about being here, she didn’t want to be in Cersei’s gilded cage.

Ragnar looked at Athelstan, who repeated it twice, checking his pronunciation, before tucking his bottom lip into his upper one and shaking his head. 

The markings on the side of Ragnar’s head curled, entangled, like limbs of dancers after a long night of feasting. Many of the men – and the women, too – had these marks on their necks, their forearms. 

‘Of - what land? Land?’ Athelstan put his hands out and made a low, sweeping gesture, but she understood. 

‘Westeros.’

Ragnar leant forward, looking at her as if looking at the bottom of a dry well for the last drops of water. ‘West-er-os.’ He stared at Athelstan, who shook his head again. Ragnar put his palms out, looking exasperated. Athelstan simply gave a larger shrug. ‘ _West-er-os_ ,’ he said again. It rolled around his mouth like a cool wind in grass.

He spoke quickly to Athelstan, who said the word she had recently learnt. 

‘King? King of Westeros?’

Sansa still couldn’t believe that Ragnar was a king. He certainly didn’t act like one. Anyway, how could she answer them? The question seemed to engulf her entire existence. Who was the king of Westeros? The entire land was killing each other to answer that question. 

She splayed her fingers out, and pointed to them. ‘King. King. King. King.’ She stopped at her thumb. She saw a wolf’s head on it.

More questions, too fast for her. Ragnar was showing the impatience of his son. He stood up, and swiped Athelstan’s tablet from his knee, ignoring the murmurs of protest as he wiped it clean.

He thrust it at Sansa, plucking the chalk from Athelstan’s hand. ‘West-er-os,’ he said again, and stabbed the chalk at the stone.

‘Danaerys,’ she said, her heart thumping. ‘Daenerys Targaryan.’

Ragnar ignored her and tapped on the stone again.

Not even a glimmer of interest. Perhaps not. Another tap, and a word. His look was beginning to bear a sword-glint. She understood. Where were their maps? She had not seen any. She had not seen any books, or paper. Trying to summon Maester Luwin’s face, imagining their old lessons, she began to draw.

***

‘Think of it,’ your brother said.

You were standing looking out to sea with him, facing the long gully that led your ships west, to the shores of England.

Ragnar turned to you, eyes glittering like a hoard. ‘There is _more_.’ He faced the water again. ‘There is more out there. More lands. More riches. Further west, further than even _you_ , traveller priest, knew of.’

‘It’s true that I never heard of it,’ said the priest. ‘I’m sure there is much to be discovered still of this world.’

‘A land with many kings, like England. And many kings might mean many riches.’

‘Maybe she is lying,’ you said. A great landmass such as they said she spoke of. It didn’t seem possible.

‘So mistrustful, brother. It is I who should be the mistrustful one of us, and yet –‘ and he gave you a look you had seen too often. A scolding one, the sort your parents used to give you when you were boys, and the sort you knew you were grateful to have. When he could have killed you for your betrayal of him.

Athelstan said something quiet, and left you both. You saw her, as she was last night, bringing food to people, looking at you from under those pale red eyelashes. Her tiny, goat-cream smile.

‘I want her,’ you said.

‘Who do you want?’

‘The girl. For a slave.’ Hastily added.

There was the slightest breath of a laugh. ‘I am sure you do, brother.’ Everything always spoken so lightly, never with a heavy heart. 

‘Why do you care? She is nothing but a girl. She is no spy. She is no magical woman. She has no sight, like your wife. If we had found her in England, we would bring her back and have her for a slave.’ 

Ragnar sighed.

‘You want her,’ you said. That was why he resisted.

‘I do _not_. I do not look on every woman the way you do.’ Always the hypocrite, your brother, the brother who spurned the most beautiful woman you have ever known. He spoke like he was teaching you a lesson, the way he would speak for the rest of your life. You knew you had to accept it, but it never got easier.

You shook your head, watched the hiccup of the waves.

‘Oh, and I am _sure_ that Siggy would be happy to hear you wish for a slave girl to pour your ale, feed you meat, warm your bed at night.’

You sniffed. ‘It doesn’t matter what Siggy thinks.’

‘Shall I tell her you say this?’

Siggy’s eyes, just-made clay plates. And Siggy, smashing plates on the floor. ‘No.’

Two gulls tore across the sky, their journey like a lock of hair being braided, always crossing, always following each other. 

‘Leave the girl be,’ your brother said. ‘I am not done with her yet. I want to know more about her lands. Who rules there. What the soil is like. And I don’t think she will be telling me much if you have taken her for your bedslave.’ 

He began to move away, towards the village, before half-turning back, casually tossing you his command as he would a fire-hot stone. ‘She stays with my family.’


	6. Sansa And The Gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little shout-out to PurpleMoon3 for a plot-point. It probably won't be the last...

_Ek þú hann hon þat_. I you he she it.

 _Mik þik hann hana þat_. Me you him her it.

Words for things were easy. Now it was getting more complicated. The words in between the words. 

Some days, Sansa learned very fast, cramming new words into her mouth like breadcrumbs. Athelstan ran out of stones and began to use the walls and table-tops, until Aslaug saw what he had done to the fine centre table in the longroom. At other times, it seemed impossible to understand Athelstan’s markings. Even he seemed to be frustrated, though his frowns would not last long – whenever he saw Sansa scratching her forehead as if to dig something out of it, or scraping the table with her nail, he would lean over enough to catch her eye. Smile. Smiles that said, _it doesn’t matter. Have patience_.

Still, it was simpler in some ways. Less jewelled than her own language, less words around the important ones. Words could be swapped around like cyvasse pieces and still the sentence would mean the same thing. _I go boat to fish. To fish go I boat_. And the more words she learnt, the more she understood what was important to these wild freefolk. Fire, warmth. Flour, grain, ale. Fur. Blood. To kill. And gods.

‘How many gods?’ Ragnar had asked her, his eyes bright, jagged waves. Floki had been with him, twisting his shoulders like a snake. 

The question had seemed like a challenge. Sansa had held up seven fingers and been able to name and show almost all of them in their tongue, apart from Stranger. Athelstan had written them down eagerly and Floki had hissed at him, a nest of asps. She had tried to tell them about the old gods, too, though it had been more difficult. Stones, trees. Weirwoods. Children of the forest.

Athelstan had begun to tell her about their gods. There were so many. Every day, there seemed to be a new one to learn. Odin, the great god. Thor, who carried a hammer. Freya, a mother-god. Sif, goddess of the - soil, perhaps?. There was a god for each important part of their world, for the moon, the sky, the sea – there seemed to be many for the sea. They made her think of her father, kneeling in the godswood, his greatsword by his side, blood-red leaves like hearts around his head.

***

‘She has more gods than you,’ says Floki to Athelstan, with a lazy, dark grin. ‘One god. It makes no sense to have only one to do everything.’

‘It’s fascinating though, isn’t it?’ says Athelstan. ‘Her gods represent the essence of humans. The mother, the father, the young girl, the old wise woman, the craftsman, the fighter and – I’m not sure what the last one is. The dark one, maybe?’

‘How can a simple human be a god?’ says Floki. Today his black trickster-eyes run down to his chin. ‘It sounds too much like your god.’

‘But she seemed to say there were other gods, too,’ says Athelstan, drumming his fingers together on the fireplace. ‘Gods in the trees, the stones.’

Floki’s hiss gets lost amongst the sizzle of the wood.

‘You seem to find _her_ very fascinating,’ Ragnar says to Athelstan, nudging his knee with his boot. 'Always by her side.'

He looks down very quickly. ‘She’s – it’s – it’s interesting to me, that’s all. Another land that no one has heard of, not even in England. New ways, new words, new gods. Anyway, you _told_ me to help her.’

‘There _is_ a little fire in his face,’ says Floki, catching onto to Ragnar’s tone. Loki-voiced. ‘Perhaps he wants more from this Blóðughadda than just her words.'

‘I’m – it’s hot. That’s all,’ says Athelstan, standing up, turning around more than is necessary, fleeing the room as if Hugi himself.

***

A god for everything. Gods for the seasons, gods for life and death and war, gods for wisdom, strength. Sansa was walking at the edge of the village, trying to remember the names of the ones Athelstan had taught her.

When she looked up, someone was crossing her path. Wearing a great cloak and leaning heavily onto a stick, as if driving it deep into the earth. Trembling. Perhaps they needed help. She took a step forward, and went to speak. As she did, the person turned, and her breath caught like a fish on a hook. 

She ran.

***

You had been fishing, though there was nothing more boring. All you wanted to do was raid, but you had a whole winter to see through first. So fishing it was, and you tried to count the number of battles you had been in while you waited for something to take your hooks and cursed Njörður.

Back in the village, a few mackerel hanging from twine in your fingers, and there was a streak of red. The girl ran smack into you, which was about as painful as being attacked with a feather. There was fear in her eyes, and it was not because of you. Something in you hoped that she had seen attackers from another place approaching, so that you could see a bit of blood, for a change.

You caught her wrist. ‘What is wrong?’

She stuttered, in her own tongue, pointing behind her. You couldn’t see anything. 

You shook her a little. ‘What? My language.’

She swallowed. ‘A man,’ she said.

‘What man?’

‘Old. His –‘ she touched her lips. You tried not to think about them being on you, around various parts of you. Not until Ragnar had decided he had had enough of talking to her, anyway. ‘Black.’ She swiped her hand over her face. ‘No eyes.’ A shudder ran through her, like a winter wind on a young tree.

‘You met the seer,’ you said. ‘A man who knows the future.’ She didn’t understand. A grumble of frustration, like your stomach always did. ‘He talks to the gods,’ you said, not caring if she understood. ‘He tells us our fate.’ You leant a bit closer, to get a look at that trace of dirt on her neck. ‘Maybe he will tell you yours.’

Maybe it was your stomach. Time to eat. You let go of her wrist and she stared up at you, winter leaves and twigs and tiny rodents. Shaking. 

‘Go,’ you said. ‘You are safe.’ She didn’t move. ‘Come,’ you said instead, and walked her down the path back into the village. Her sleeve stayed close to yours, and she glanced back over her shoulder more than once.

At the longhouse, she turned to you. ‘Thank you.’ A flash of that hair, and she was gone.

***

When Ragnar next came to her, Sansa had questions first.

‘We know about your land,’ she said. ‘We know of a land, east, with dragons.’ When Sansa had asked Athelstan about dragons, thinking of the boat-prow she had seen, he had told her that Alsaug’s father had slain a dragon, that there were several stories of dragons and gods. The man she had seen had looked monstrous, scaled, deformed. She had not understood Rollo, apart from the word _gods_. Perhaps he had been a god. Perhaps they did walk among them here. Dragons and gods, slipping amongst them like men.

Ragnar pursed his lips, shrugged. ‘It may be us. I have never seen one. They ___’ _Live? Exist_ , maybe?

‘Do you know Daenerys Targaryen?’ she said. With Athelstan’s help she explained that she was a princess – a queen - with a claim to the throne, that her grandfather had once been the king of Westeros. 

Ragnar listened, drew his fingers down his beard, over and over. ‘I do not know this queen of dragons. I have not heard of this. She must be far away. But I should like to meet her.’ Spoken with a faint glint-grin, before he dragged his chair right up to Sansa’s, gazing at her intently. ‘And now. Your four kings. Your land. Do they all fight for this one place? For West-er-os?’

What did they fight for? For honour? For land? For their families? She really didn’t know anymore. ‘Yes.’ It seemed so far away. Another time. ‘My brother fight,’ she said, before correcting herself. ‘ _Fought_. He is dead.’ She could not say more, even though she knew she knew enough to be able to explain. She did not want to use their words to explain what had happened to him. What they had done to him.

Ragnar put his hands together and his eyes became much warmer. ‘I am sorry that your brother is dead. I do not know what that is like.’ All of my brothers are dead, she thought. All except Jon. He put a hand on top of her knuckles. There were small cuts all over the skin, old and new scars. ‘But I ___ a daughter.’ When Sansa didn’t show understanding, he said. ‘My daughter. Girl. Dead.’ _Lost_ , maybe.

There was something in his face she had not seen before, then. A deep sadness, like a mist on the sea, far off. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, and, after a moment’s hesitation, put her other hand on top of his. 

They stayed there, very still, for some moments. Outside, a goat stuttered, and she could hear a child’s footsteps, their voice lightly pattering. Sansa thought of Arya, who truly was lost. Of everyone. Everyone was gone. Winterfell was lost. What did she have now, truly?

Ragna took a long, deep breath in, as if waking up from a milk-poppied sleep and turned his palm up. He brought her own hand to his face, turning it as you might a stone in the light, eyes dangerous. Sansa felt a small piece of grit lodge in her throat. Perhaps she had gone too far, placing her other hand on his. He was a king. She was – 

‘Your brother was a ____?’ His voice was absent-minded.

Athelstan gently cut in. ‘A fighter? Warrior? He fought with a king?’

She sat up very straight. _Robb_. Robb, who wheeled her about until she was ten and two, who teased her and praised her embroidery and sat quietly when she sang. ‘No,’ she said. It was as if a slow fire had been placed in her belly, and was warming her Starkblood. ‘No. My brother _was_ a King. The King of the North.’

***

A princess.

You lay awake next to Siggy as she slept softly, curled up on her side. 

‘A princess,’ you had said around the fire, after the night feast. Sansa had sat at the end of Ragnar’s table, next to Athelstan, their heads very close, as always. She ate like a Christian, pulling apart each bit of food until it was no bigger than an insect, putting it into her mouth as if it were a jewel.

Ragnar shrugged at the flames, as if he had simply said that she was a girl, or had red hair. ‘A princess.’

‘She is from a Northern country,’ said the priest to the men there. ‘Maybe like ours. Her brother was called Robb, and was one of five kings fighting for Wes-te-ros. I do not think he died well.’

A princess. ‘We only have her word,’ you said. ‘She could say she was anyone. She could say she was one of Rán’s daughters and you would believe her.’ You saw her trembling again, and the look in her eyes when she had thanked you. Looking for trust.

‘But she didn’t. She said she was the daughter of a man, Ed-dard Stark, and that her brother was a king-in-the-north, until he was killed. She says that her family lived in great house, as high as five of our houses, made of stone. She says that there are many places with houses this big.’

‘There will be great treasure there, if what she says is true,’ said Bjørn. ‘Think of it, father.’

‘Stories,’ said Floki. ‘They may be stories. Like her gods who are human.’

‘Or they may not,’ said Ragnar. ‘There may be lands far West, further than England, greater than England. And we may be the first to find them.’

Bjørn’s face had lit up, two sticks struck together.

A princess. Of the North. A princess like Aslaug. Of a great land. 

A princess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mythology School** :
> 
>  ** _Blóðughadda_** : one of Aegir and Ran’s nine daughters, the 'one with blood-red hair' – the color of the waves after a naval battle
> 
>  ** _Hugi_** : Hugi is a young giant, who outran Thialfi in a running contest in Utgard. Hugi is an illusion and the embodiment of thought and no one can run faster than thought.
> 
>  ** _Njörður_** : the god of wind, sea and fish.
> 
> PS I don't know why this other note is always there, below! I can't seem to get rid of it. If you've got this far, you've probably watched 'Vikings'...


	7. Sansa Is Propositioned

Sansa woke to hear a noise. Someone was in the house. Moving. Shuffling, quietly. An assassin, come to strike her through the heart? Floki? Rollo?

Heart pounding, she turned very slowly from the wall and shifted upwards. Her bed was separated from the rest of this end of the longhouse by a low wooden panel. Perhaps Ragnar did not yet trust her enough to grant her privacy. She could see nothing. No shadows. The still forms of the boys. The cradle in the corner.

There. Movement, shifting at the far wall. There was someone – oh gods. Sansa froze, held her breath.

It was Ragnar. Ragnar and Aslaug. Moving together. They were – 

She couldn’t move. They were _together_ , right here in the room, with their whole family asleep. With _her_ there.

Her skin prickled. Aslaug turned towards Sansa, Ragnar behind her, his arm curved around her round belly, kissing her shoulder, her neck. Soft gasps, like the sweep of a broom on stone, from both of them. Oh _Gods_. Very carefully, she began to move again. _Please don’t hear me -_

Suddenly Ragnar’s eyes were on her, blue bolts pinning her in place. He was still moving slowly. Sansa didn’t breathe. She wanted to die. 

He grinned. 

***

You never went. Ragnar always wanted to know everything - which of his sons would discover new lands, which of his wives he should keep, when that answer was obvious, which bloody baby goat to sacrifice to Odin. The gods knew your fate and asking the seer would make no difference. You would die when you would die.

But now, on this chilled early morning, you found yourself in the darkened hut, which smelt of ancient vegetables and stale breath. It turned your stomach. 

The seer was huddled in a corner, folds of his cloak gathered into his lap. Chewing something. Black-mouthed. ‘I do not see your face very often.’

‘You do not see at all.’ You leant back, feigning indifference, but it was hard to get comfortable. 

‘I see more than you will ever see. If you do not want to speak to me, why are you here?’

You looked at the square of light on the sackcloth in front of the window. ‘The girl. Is she who she says?’

‘ _Girl_.’ A long word, drifting out to sea, spoken as if trying to conjure up many girls.

‘You know which one I mean. Stop playing games with me. Is she – of high birth? A princess?’ 

‘She is many things.’

You drummed your hands on the chair. You could take that stick and crack his head open.

‘She will never be what you want her to be.’

‘What do I want her to be?’

The seer tossed his head, an old bull, restless. ‘Why ask this question when you already know it? I don’t have the time.’

‘You have time. All you do is sit here.’

‘You think I just sit here? My time is spent listening. Listening to the gods. Their voices like flocks of birds in my ear. Like the sea. Like the winds.’

The stench was more than you could bear. You would be glad not to live to a hundred or more if it meant smelling like that. Time to leave.

As you reached the doorway, the seer spoke again. ‘She is powerful. But not perhaps in the way you imagine.’ He held out his palm. 

You grimaced, took a step forward, and licked it.

***

‘I want to ask you something,’ Ragnar says, sitting down next to her, speaking in her ear as if telling her a secret. 

He is full of life this morning, full of river-spirit. The more he finds about this girl, the better everything seems to be. The more promise there is. For him, for his sons, for his people.

Sansa’s cheeks are the colour of thin blood. He doesn’t know why. She blushes at everything, strange Wes-ter-os girl. Princess. Aslaug did not look happy when he told her, even though he also said that he already _had_ a princess, _better_ than a princess, and did not require another one. That seemed to make it worse.

The girl puts down the bread she is eating and nods. She has not made a single crumb.

‘You have something I want,’ he says, and nudges her shoulder with his.

She looks rather worried, like he might eat her for his morning meal.

‘You know,’ he says.

Sansa’s eyes widen. Her colour becomes deeper.

He taps her temple. ‘You _know_. You have knowledge. You and your people. To come so far. I want to know about your boats.’

Her shoulders drop and her face smooths, snowdrifts melting. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Boats.’

She begins to tell him, and there are not enough words in her belly, and her own words do not help. He stops her, calls Athelstan over, calls Floki. 

She is not a ship-maker, of course, but what she shows him all makes everyone’s faces wide, everyone’s mouths long caves. She takes Athelstan’s bark – he has begun making thin sheets of bark, and using dark stones to make his marks – and draws a boat. Long, thin, a curling dragon at the prow.

‘It is like ours,’ Floki says with wonder. ‘She has made our boat.’ He looks at her, for once the light venom in his voice winnowed away. ‘Your boats are like ours?’

Sansa shakes her head. Next to the longboat, she draws again. She keeps the stone moving for one, great line, and another, until Ragnar realises what she is doing. That she is drawing another boat.

Rollo comes and stands next to her, looking over her shoulder.

His boys come and look. Bjørn, too, and Thorunn. They are amazed to see her making these shapes at all, on a tree and not on skin, which is the only place for them. Skin and stone. And to see that she is making a boat. 

But they do not realise what he and Floki do. Floki watches as she continues making marks, as still as he has ever been, and looks up at him. A boat with not one, but three sails. Three masts. 

The boat is five times as big as his longboat. 

***

Ragnar was not the slightest bit ashamed of Sansa having seen him last night. In fact, he did not seem to be thinking of it at all, though when he had first come over Sansa had been terrified that she was either going to be punished, or be asked to do something rather more untoward.

But punishment did not seem to be a prospect anymore. Since she had told them about Robb, about who she was, things had changed further. Ragnar – apart from _looking_ at her like that - had treated her with a little more respect. Everyone had. Aslaug’s boys had held her hands and shown her their wooden boats, while their mother had looked on, watchful.

More than anything, they wanted to _know_. To know everything about her world. Floki had not left her side since she had drawn the boat, bringing her more bark, making her draw further, pulling Athelstan closer. When Sansa had said she was tired, he had shaken his head, clapped his hands on her cheeks and said ‘no,’ very firmly. He had called for angelica and birch tea, for more food, and made her stay.

Sansa was no mistress of ships. She tried to tell him that, through Athelstan, but it made no difference. She still knew things that Floki did not, and he would learn them. So she drew what she could, with more details, trying her best to remember the little she knew of boats from her days gazing out at the harbour from the Red Keep. She wasn’t Ironborn, after all. 

They reminded her of Theon’s people, these. People of boats and fish and salt and iron. _Theon_ – who betrayed them all. She would never forgive him. If she ever saw him again – 

Floki dashed a hand in front of her eyes. She smiled at him, and carried on drawing the side of the ship.

***

Ragnar leans on the door frame looking into the main square, where Sansa sits with Athelstan, their hands moving like the wings of birds.

‘Why are you looking at her?’ His wife is behind him, with Ivar in her arms.

‘It is not what you think.’

She stands by his side, a hand on his shoulder. Breath smelling of hot goatmilk and rosemary. ‘What do I think?’ Her voice spiked like rosemary also.

‘I am also looking at my son.’ Bjørn is nearer to the bay, fighting with Torstein. His shoulder drops too low.

Aslaug remains calm, like a summer tide. She knows that, though she is a queen, she will always be the second wife, and that her opinion will always be second to his own. ‘Are you so sure she is a princess? You do not know much about her. About her people. How she came to be here.’

He turns, take the bundle that is Ivar from her. His son with the legs beaten by Thor’s hammer before he emerged into the world. A son that he left to die, and whose eyes are as bright as English coins. ‘I know how she came to be here. On a boat with three sails. A simple peasant girl would not know to draw this.’

And a simple peasant girl would not be a good match for his son.

***

Later, they were all around her again. It was as if she was a storyteller, and they wanted to know all her stories at once. However tired she was, she was pleased to be able to help them. It did not feel wrong to tell them these things. She did not feel that she was betraying anyone. Who would she be betraying?

Rollo sat opposite her, gazing at her intently. She could not quite believe that he and Ragnar were brothers. He seemed so very different. But then again, she could think of other brothers who were different. Stannis and Renly. Joffrey and Tommen. 

He spoke, and she understood some of it. ‘Men ___ fight.’

Of course. They would want to know that. How they fought. She said _sword_ in the Common Tongue, and stood up. They all moved back to allow her room. She mimed holding a sword, bringing it up and cutting someone’s head off. She imagined it was Joffrey’s. 

Ragnar grinned and said a word. Athelstan asked her to repeat hers and wrote it down in his own way. 

Sansa wondered how to tell them about Valerian steel. She put her hand out towards Rollo, and gestured for his sword. He looked at his lap and back up at her, amused. Oh Gods, not that. Their swords were shorter than those carried by the kingsguard, by her father. She stood her ground, gestured again. He frowned, before standing up and drawing it out for her. Though she held it with both hands, the point of it clunked to the floor. Holding it by its crude pommel, Sansa tried to show them how much bigger Westeros swords could be, her hand up near her ribs. Torstein said something to Rollo and put his hand over his own crotch, which made them all laugh. But Ragnar continued watched her keenly, and nodded at her. _More_.

She showed them the action for shooting a bow from an arrow. She had never done it herself, but had seen almost all of the rest of her family loose them a hundred times. She imagined piercing Cersei’s heart, and a trail of blood trickling like a thin waterfall from her breast.

It was the first time she’d seen Rollo smile – a half-smile anyway, as she tried to show them an axe-blade in the air and dared to slice quite near his arm. Chopping off Tywin’s hand, so that he matched his eldest son. Rollo’s eyebrows came up a little and he turned to his brother, who gave him a strange look back. 

Afterwards, leaving the feast room to get some air after being stuck for so long indoors, she heard heavy footsteps behind her. Gods, maybe it was that horrible man-without-eyes -

Rollo. Standing there, looking at her like she was a word he was trying to understand. He put his arm out, leaned on a post.

‘I want – ask - you.’ Sansa could still not understand everything when people spoke quickly. The smaller words swept by like sparrows on the wind.

She clasped her hands in front of her. ‘Yes.’ _Of course_ , she wanted to say, to be polite, and didn’t know how.

‘You – me – sex.’ His face was open, a little warm light in his eyes.

She can’t have understood him correctly. But those were the only words she understood. Thorunn had said that word to her several times, and Sansa had only understood it when Thorunn used some rather graphic hand gestures. ‘Forgive me, I –‘ she smiled at him. ‘I’ll get Athelstan.’

His face dropped at the name. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’ He took a breath in, and furrowed his eyebrows. ‘I want.’ A hand on his chest. ‘You.’ He pointed at her. ‘To come. And have sex. With me.’ And he put his finger at his chest, raised his eyebrows.

He couldn’t mean it. You couldn’t just _ask_ – Sansa felt a little brew of anger in with the shock. She wasn’t a _whore_. They didn’t seem to have whores here. Or at least not in one house, as they were in Westeros. She must be getting it wrong. Sex must mean – something else here.

‘Athelstan,’ she said again, quite firmly, and turned.

‘No.’ He touched her arm, quite strongly, before releasing her. There was a flash of something strange in his eyes – puzzlement, thinking hard. ‘Siggy.’

Siggy. What was he saying? That he wanted to have sex with Siggy? 

He pointed at her, and then at himself. ‘Siggy,’ he said again. Oh Gods. Surely - 

‘No thank you,’ she said quickly.

He stood tall. ‘Why not?’

 _It’s not proper. It’s – disgusting_. With a man and a woman? Three together? The sorts of things guards would whisper of in her ear as they led her to the Great Hall. I haven’t even lain with _one_ man, she thought. ‘In my land,’ she said slowly, ‘it is not done.’

‘You are not in _your_ land,’ he said slowly, through a tight jaw and a slight smirk. 

‘I will not,’ she said, carefully. She did not want to offend him so much that he hurt her. She sensed that he could, very easily. He could snap her in two like a brittle winter twig.

He stared at her for a while longer, dark-green eyes of moss and seaweed and peat-bog. Then his face lightened again. ‘I do not care,’ he said, his lip curling up proudly, breath in his voice. ‘Just thought I would ask.’

***

Siggy’s eyes were wide, and they were furious. They were boiling seas when Thor had his hammer raised. ‘You asked her what?’

You shrugged, lying on your back in bed next to her, head on clasped hands. ‘What of it?’ 

She seemed stronger than you had thought, the girl, swinging her pretend weapons about. Attacking you with an axe, giving you that look as she had done so. A warrior-princess. Ragnar had slept with Aslaug quickly enough. _She_ had been a princess. 

Siggy was propped on her elbow, her mouth open. She had seen Rollo talking to Sansa and was asking what they had discussed. ‘You didn’t ask _me_ , Rollo.’

‘Why would I ask you?’ You continued to stare at the ceiling. When Sansa had said Athelstan, you had panicked. You did not want to have sex with Athelstan as well. You never wanted to have sex with that Christian priest. He would just smile and look like the bloody monk he was. So you suggested the other person you enjoyed having sex with. Well, sometimes you did.

‘Because I would not – I am your –‘

‘My what? You are not my wife. We are not married.’ 

‘We are _together_. I have stayed with you through all this, through the times when you almost drank yourself to death, and this is how you show your gratitude?’

It didn’t matter what she said. She could say what she liked. You always had the winning hnefatafl piece. 

You turned your head, your elbows still outwards. ‘You had sex with the king. You had sex with his son. I can do what I want.’ 

And you turned away from her, and shut your eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse recreation school** :
> 
>  _ **Hnefatafl**_ : a Norse strategy board game. Apparently the Norse people loved indoor board games! Ragnar and Rollo, locked in highly competitive Guess Who...


	8. Sansa And The Gifts

‘It is a great land.’

Everyone is looking at Sansa’s latest drawing. Ragnar woke her up early and, before she was allowed to eat her day-meal, placed bark and charcoal in front of her and bid her make the shapes of her land, that one that had begun to whisper in his dreams. _West-er-os_.

‘It is a little like England,’ Athelstan says. ‘But perhaps longer. Thinner. And much larger. I don’t know any of these place names.’

She had shown them where her own tall house was, pointing up and left. She is a Northern person, in her own land.

‘How do you know it is a great land, father?’ says Bjorn.

‘Because she told me how long it would take to travel from _here_ –‘ he places his finger on the place where she had said ‘home,’ and runs it down the spine of the land to the inlet where her eyes had grown darker. 'To _here_.' He had not believed her when she had said, with Athelstan’s help, that one would have to travel for at least two circles of the moon to reach this place. 

‘How many people?’ says Rollo. ‘We would need to know how big the village is.’

Ragnar turns to his brother, and smiles a smile full of teeth that bite. ‘It is not a village.’

‘It is a great city,’ says Athelstan. ‘There are many people.’

‘How many?’ says Rollo. ‘Two hundred?’

Athelstan looks up simply. ‘Not even two thousand. Many thousands, maybe.’

Floki sucks in a breath, and lets out a giggle.

‘But where is it?’ Ragnar says slowly, staring at the map as if it were a golden, jewelled cross, or a decorated silver flagon. He hits Athelstan on the shoulder.

Athelstan slides over two other pieces of bark. On one, he has drawn what they know of their own North, and the lands to the east and south. On another, he has drawn the leaning leg-of-lamb shape that is England and its north. Slowly, he moves them around, as if planning a battle with armies. He places England west of their lands. This they all know. 

‘She does not seem to know our lands, anymore than we know hers,’ says Athelstan. ‘It must be further west, perhaps very far.’ He places Sansa’s land to the north and west of England, with a great amount of wooden table as the sea. ‘I think it must be here.’

***

Once Ragnar had understood who she was, Sansa was banned from helping in the way that she had before. ‘No cooking,’ he had said, giving her the sort of smile that seemed to say he would slice her arms off if she disobeyed him. ‘No cleaning.’ Teeth-flash. It meant that she either worked on learning their tongue, alone or with Athelstan, played with Hvitserk and Ragnvald, or sat, watching the arc of the bay, wondering what path her life would take now. Her time at the Red Keep seemed a winter away, and Winterfell another season before that. What was her purpose now? What was her fate? Was it simply to live?

One day, looking at the red and green stitching on Queen Aslaug’s cloak, Sansa remembered at least something else she could do to pass the time. Something she was good at, and wouldn’t be told off for doing. 

***

‘Three sails, Ragnar. _Three sails_. Think of the speed. The size.’

Floki has done nothing but talk of ships for days. He sits next to Ragnar as they eat. ‘I think the boats are lighter. The wood is not stacked –‘ he places the fingers of one hand on the palm of the other, as if about to clap – ‘but joined, each one next to the other.’ He lines up his hands, forefinger against the other’s little finger, before ripping a piece of hare-thigh off with his teeth and speaking through a mouthful of food. ‘It is fascinating.’

‘How long?’

Floki shakes his head. ‘It will take many moons. Many men. To build a boat this size. To build more than one.’

‘This summer?’ He does not think he can wait more than the other side of winter.

‘Ragnar.’ Floki’s voice becomes light, dancing. ‘We do not have the money.’

Ragnar is watching his son, who is sitting next to Thorunn at the end of a table, grinning at her and eating the end of a carrot out of her hand. ‘Then we will find it.’ He gets up.

***

‘Hello.’

The bench bowed slightly under Bjørn’s weight as he sat down.

Sansa greeted him in return. ‘Will Thorunn not come?’ she asked. Thorunn had her chin propped on her hand and was looking at them. Bjørn waved. She screwed her nose up at them and began talking to the girl next to her.

‘No. Father said I _____ come and talk to you but I am not sure what I ______ talk about.’ He looked a little embarrassed, leaning over on his elbows and gazing at a plate. For once, he did not seem to know what to say next.

Everyone talked at mealtimes. Sansa had eaten at many meals where the only sounds were that of metal on metal as fork scraped plate, where long silences were only filled with the thoughts of Cersei planning what venomous barb to say next. But here, it was a time to celebrate being with friends and family, and people swapped seats halfway through a meal, breaking conversations to hurl themselves into new ones.

‘Do you like it here?’ she said. She had understood from Athelstan that Bjørn had been away from Kattegat for four years.

His face cleared. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is right for me to be with my father. But I am sad not to see my mother every day.’ He picked at the wood of the table.

Sansa thought once again of her own mother, a pull in her stomach like a fishing line. ‘Your mother is very strong.’

‘She is. You ______ like her.’ _Would_ like her? _Are_ like her? His expression lightened again, the sun through clouds, and he spoke quickly. ‘You _____ have more women-friends. Thorunn wants to spend more time with you. You have not left Kattegat yet. Thorunn ____ take you to the mountains.’ 

Sansa looked over at her. Thorunn caught Bjørn’s eye, grinned through a mouthful of bread, and put her tongue out. 

***

‘Tell me of the people at Kingslanding,’ your brother said. 

You and Athelstan sat either side of Sansa and you tried not to think about having sex with them both. It was not a good thought.

Her chin went down to her chest. ‘Bad,’ she said.

‘Why were you there and not in your home? In Win-ter-fell?’

Her face was very still and she did not answer for some time. ‘To marry,’ she said. ‘A prince. A king.’

Your brother sat back, and his eyes changed shape from longboat to one-man rowing boat. ‘Who is this king?’

‘Dead.’ Her colour had gone. White as whalebone.

‘Who is king now?’

‘I don’t know. His brother.’ Her eyes flickered to you for a heartbeat.

Ragnar looked at you. You stared back.

‘But it is his mother who is queen. Who –‘ she looked blank and wagged her finger at everyone sternly. You tried not to smile. It was not very convincing.

‘Rules,’ said Athelstan. 

‘Rules,’ she repeated. She made a breath that had been cut at with a dagger, put both of her hands flat on the table and rose as if to leave.

Your brother leaned over, put a hand on hers, caught her with his eyes. _Not yet_. ‘Would they trade with me?’ he said. ‘Would they let me have land?’

She stayed half-standing, still as a carving, as Athelstan put it into different words for her. Her eyes travelled to you, to Floki, to Athelstan, and to Ragnar. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They would kill you all.’

Your brother looked at you again, and this time his look was both warm and cold, the way there were pockets of warmth in the sea when the sun is out. ‘Well, then,’ he said, releasing her. ‘That is good to know.’

***

Sansa knocked on the door of the house at the far end of the village. 

‘Come,’ she heard.

Siggy was placing a large-bottomed kettle over a fire. Sansa was glad not to see Rollo there. He had acted in the longhouse as if nothing had happened.

‘I – have something. For you.’ She held out her gift to Siggy. It had taken her three days to find enough differently-dyed wool and convince the two women she had gleaned it from that it was for dressmaking. She had embroidered a tall, jagged mountain rising from a lake, with pale, thicker wool darned into a waterfall. 

Siggy looked at it for some moments, before folding her arms. ‘No. Thank you.’

‘I –‘ Sansa put her hand on her chest. ‘Make – made this. For you.’ She had wanted so much to thank her for caring for her over those first few days. Every time she had awoken, Siggy had been there, helping her drink, smoothing her hair away from her brow.

But now Siggy’s eyes hardened, like a crust of bread in an oven. They swept over Sansa’s shoulders, her hair, her face. ‘I do not want it. You may go now.’

Sansa had carefully folded up her sackcloth, imagining her heart folding up in the same way, nodded, and left.

Later, Athelstan explained to her that these people did not make art to be looked at. ‘Everything has a use,’ he said. ‘Chairs and tables are ____ ,’ he mimed carving, and clothes _____ ,’ he showed her sewing, ‘but it is all for a reason.’

Sansa thought of Rollo’s proposition again, and his warm, proud look. ‘How long - Rollo and Siggy – married?’ she asked.

‘No. Not married,’ he said. ‘Only – together.’

This surprised her. She had assumed they had been long married, somehow. Perhaps it was alright in this place to ask someone to have sex with you if you were not married, no matter how long you had been together. The thought of it brought a fire-prickle to her cheeks. 

‘May I see it?’ said Athelstan. He took the sackcloth from her, gazing at it as if it were the last page of a long story. A lock of his hair fell over his face before he looked up. ‘It is beautiful,’ he said, looking up. 

She wondered how he had got the small fleck-scars across his forehead, the dark marks on his hands. _Then I would like you to have it_. ‘You. For you,’ she said.

A tiny smile ghosted in. ‘Thank you,’ he said, with sincerity, before nodding his thanks again, trying to catch her eye, make her smile. She gave him a small one back. ‘I do understand,’ he said. ‘I used to make art.’

But how could he have, if he was a Northman? Then Athelstan told her, for the first time, of his old life, and who he had been.

***

You found her sitting over her bark-pieces, the ones covered with Athelstan’s marks, her mouth moving, though she was not eating. She was saying ‘I can. I could. You can. You could. He can. He could.’

You sat down next to her. She looked alarmed, and shifted slightly further away from you, placing her bark pieces into a pile, putting her hands in her lap. Like a strange girl-monk. 

You took the stale piece of bread on the end of the table, chewed. ‘I have something for you.’

She watched you like a mouse on the ground that knew an eagle was right above it. You reached behind you, pulled out a short sword. 

‘I – a sword,’ she said. Eyes like clear ice-pools. ‘For me?’ 

You nodded. ‘To fight.’

‘I –‘ she looked at her bark. ‘I cannot fight.’

This didn’t make sense. ‘You know boats. You know swords. You showed us.’ 

She looked at the breadcrumbs you had left everywhere. ‘No, I am - I cannot fight.’

You felt only disappointment, bitter as birch-bark. ‘You are like Aslaug. A princess who does not fight. A princess who -’ what was the word for it again? You gestured at her charcoal-stick, pretended to make shapes. 

She didn’t say anything.

‘A woman should fight,’ you said, wiping your mouth and nudging a baby goat away with your toe.

‘I –‘ she looked like she wanted to say many things. ‘I cannot,’ she said, for the third time. 

‘You can.’ You took her bark from her, pointed at the marks, though you didn’t know which one was which. ‘You could.’

***

Sansa didn’t understand Rollo at all. Not just his words, which were often fast, impatient, but his manner, too. He didn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed about their conversation a few days ago. Until the discussion in the longhouse, she had studiously avoided him, veering into the nearest doorway if she saw him striding down the street and sitting as far away from him as possible at meals. She was beginning to wonder if Siggy had _known_ about what he had said, and that was why she was angry with her, and felt deep shame.

And he had brought her a gift. Of sorts. How could he think her a fighter? She had begun to understand that women fought here – that someone like Brienne of Tarth, the huge woman who had returned to the Red Keep with Jaime, would not have seemed out of place. Lagertha was spoken of as a _skjaldmær_ \- a maiden with a shield - and Thorunn was often seen training by the bay.

She saw Arya, tearing towards her from the heavy curtains of the woods at Winterfell, small wooden sword in hand, yelling her head off. She thought of Dacey Mormont, who had come to Winterfell once when Sansa was much younger, clad in bearskins and carrying a greatsword.

Rollo had not looked angry when she had told him she could not fight. He had simply told her that she should. Spoken as plainly as if he had said ‘a woman should give birth’, or ‘a woman should love.’ She could. 

_Þú kunnuð_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Old Norse school** :
> 
>  ** _Þú kunnuð_** = you can
> 
>  **Floki's Boat-Building Corner** :
> 
> Floki talks of the overlapping wood hulls of the Viking longships, called **clinker-built**. These were around as early as the 4th century A.D.
> 
> As ships developed over the centuries, they became **carvel-built** , meaning wooden planks were streamlined, used less heavy timber framing and displaced less water, therefore being lighter.


	9. Sansa And The Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Sansa in this chapter, including *** meaning time-gaps rather than POV switches. Hope it makes sense!

Lagertha was in Kattegat. Many of the villagefolk knew her and brought gifts of bilberries, blackberries, beads for her hair. She strode through the small crowd, taking the gifts with gracious, kind smiles, her shieldmaidens clad in dark-blue cloaks behind her. The smiles starched a little as she reached Sansa, who stood with Thorunn near the longhouse. 

Thorunn had gone from straddling a log-seat and hand-wrestling one of her male slave-friends to standing very still, her hands folded in front of her. ‘Hello, Earl Ingstad,’ she said, very politely.

‘Hello.’ Lagertha’s voice was warm, but with a long spoon-curl upwards at the end.

‘Mother!’ Bjørn was at once by her side. You never knew when he was going to appear. He had a lightness of foot unexpected in a young man built so impressively.

‘Hello, Bjørn,’ she said, giving him a brief glance as he kissed her on the cheek. ‘I was meeting your friends.’

A flicker of worry swept over her son’s face. ‘Yes.’ He straightened. ‘You have met Thorunn, Mother.’

Lagertha smiled at her. ‘I have. It is good to see you again.’ Everything she uttered sounded a little like a challenge.

Thorunn’s eyes fell to the straw scattered at their feet and she nodded vigorously before looking at Bjørn for reassurance. He grinned at her.

His mother’s eyes fell on Sansa. She felt like the map she had drawn that Ragnar now stood over every night. 

‘And you have also met Sansa,’ Bjørn said. ‘But we know now that she is from over-the-sea. From West-er-os, a great land. She is a princess from the North.’

‘I have heard,’ said Lagertha. Her gaze was firm as porridge left in the pan, as firm as the pan it stood in, but Sansa was not cowed. She had withstood the sort of looks from Cersei that could turn sunflowers into ashes, and she did not get the sense that this woman wanted to hurt her.

‘I am happy to meet you. I know about you. Stories,’ she said, wishing she didn’t sound like such a complete idiot. _I am so pleased to be able to make your acquaintance properly. I have heard so much about you_. 

‘Ragnar is looking after you well?’ Lagertha’s voice was not ungentle. 

Sansa could sense him lurking by the doorway, his pointed hood over his head, watching everything. ‘He is. Yes.’

Lagertha looked over Sansa’s shoulder at him, before seeming to take on the strength of a fine elm tree. ‘If my ex-husband ever causes you difficulty, I offer you ________ in my village.’ Her smile had warmed, just enough.

It was a little like the word for _safe. Sanctuary_ , perhaps? Sansa’s knees reflexively went to bend, but she stopped herself. A curtsey did not seem right here. ‘Thank you,’ she said instead. ‘I will remember it.’

***

‘I have a job for you.’

Lagertha turns towards him. They are standing on the high rock to the east of the bay, looking out on the wide plate of water. 

‘Go on,’ she says.

‘This new land is very big. And it is full of many men.’

‘Yes Ragnar, I know. And you want to raid it.’

‘I want us to raid it.’

The sun strikes the sea like a forger. ‘You know I want to make our people great as much as you do,’ she says.

Ragnar turns to his wife. His ex-wife. His earl-ex-wife. ‘We need many more men than we have between us to raid this land. To build the boats to raid this land. I want you to visit the villages, as many as you can, over the winter. Talk to the earls there. Make them know about this place and its riches. Gather their pledges to raid with us in the summer, and gather volunteers to help Floki with his boats.’

‘That is a lot to ask of one earl.’

‘We will do it also. I am sending Rollo.’

‘So you ask the earl of one village to go but here you send your brother?’

Always with the challenges - if not fists in the face, then words in the ears. ‘I may go, here and there.’ He slides his eyes to her. ‘Aslaug is great with child.’

Lagertha smiles. ‘Yes. She and Freyja must talk often.’ You wonder if she will ever bear more children. The thought of her having a son with another man makes you want to blunt your dagger on the stones all night. ‘What is this I hear about Bjørn?’

He lightly folds his arms. ‘What about my son?’

‘ _Our_ son. You want him to marry the foreign girl.’

Ragnar puts on his most innocent baby-goat face. ‘Only if he wants to.’

She turns to him, speaks as she used to, low and gentle. ‘Leave him be. He is young.’

He shrugs. ‘We had met by his age.’

A hand on his sleeve, a gaze that is Frigg and Elli and Jörð all at once and one that he could happily never look away from. ‘And look what happened to us.’

***

‘Hello, Princess.’ Rollo was suddenly there, crashing down on a hay bale next to her. It didn’t sound quite like he meant his greeting, especially after she had told him she could not fight. 

‘You do not have to call me that,’ she said. ‘And I do not think Queen Aslaug likes it.’ Her looks had become just-winter lakes since Sansa had decided to tell them exactly who she was, though she was perfectly courteous. Sansa hadn’t felt like she had much to lose any more by showing them Winterfell. It was no longer hers. Everyone was dead. 

‘I can call you what I want to call you.’ His hair was tied back, making his face seem more striking than ever, his eyes darker. ‘What is your land? Is it part of Niflheim?’

‘No. I don’t know.’

He plucked up a piece of straw and began picking it apart. ‘Who are your people? _Your_ people, not _Kingslanding_ people.’

 _Her_ people. Her family, all of them, a mess of thick furs and smiles and shivers, and the scattered villages that made up her father’s lands. Her lands, once. 

‘Your name is Lothbrook,’ she said, wishing he wasn’t sitting quite so close. If Siggy saw them she would fold her arms and give Sansa wildfire-eyes. ‘Family name. My name is Stark. Our –‘ she said it in her own language – ‘ _sigil_ is – was -‘ Stuck again. What was the word for _wolf_? She had not learnt it. 

She took some bark from her belt and drew. He leant closer, watching. They seemed to have a fascination for her drawing anything. She was rather better at embroidery. The wolf had a crooked ear and its tail was too long. 

Rollo peered at it. She could smell salt on his skin.

His face lifted. ‘Alright, little _raf refr_ ’, he said. ‘No princesses.’

***

Thorunn and Sansa rode on horseback through the mountains. The leaves had fully turned their colours on the oaks now, and many had dropped to the ground. There was a sense of expectancy in the air, a longing. Everything was quiet, apart from the cry of a falcon overhead.

With Bjørn’s encouragement, Sansa and Thorunn had begun to spend more time together. Athelstan would hold his bark-sheets in both hands and look a little mournful, but she couldn’t learn for every hour of the day. It was exhausting. Instead, after Sansa had shyly asked, Thorunn had taken her to the far end of the bay, given her a faded wooden shield and promptly run at her. 

Sansa found bruises the colour of early plums all over her the next morning. Thorunn had told her that she wasn’t quite ready for fighting yet and that first she needed to be stronger. She kept making Bjørn add more pigeon to her plate and prodded and pushed her in the back, yelling, until Sansa ran along the bay. It was the first time that she had ever worn women’s breeches. 

She began to sleep more soundly. It was far better than it had ever been at the Red Keep, walking in the shadows of the corridors, curtseying, doing nothing but being scrutinised, sneered at. Her only activities had been embroidery, praying, and fearing for her life. Here, she was _doing_ something.

Sansa wasn’t exactly sure where it was they were going on this chilled autumn morning, but with Athelstan’s help, Thorunn had told her that they visiting a special place. Freyja’s pool.

From the top of the first mountain, Kattegat looked impossibly small, like the little wooden toys of Ragnar’s sons. Barely-there smoke trailed up and she imagined her mother’s head nestled amongst the houses, her hair-strands being teased up through the roofs by the winds.

After an hour’s riding, their horses crested another hill, impossibly high, and descended into a small dell. Perhaps this was where their gods lived. Here was a circle of ash and birch trees, which somehow had not lost their leaves or their greenness, even though they seemed impossibly old, their bark like the skin of Old Nan’s hands. They encircled an iron-coloured pool.

Thorunn sank to her knees and placed her hands on her lap. It was a strange position for this girl who always looked so strong, who shoved Sansa in the shoulder all the time until she almost choked on her food, rode without a saddle, and chased Bjørn around. She began to mutter in a soft-edged voice. She was praying.

Sansa looked at the pool, which was as still as glass, as still as a held breath. Perhaps she could pray. But who to? To the Mother? To her old gods? She needed a weirwood tree for that, and though these leaves were incongruously glossy in this place of mist and metal, they were not red. And what to pray for – Athelstan had told her that Freyja was an important god, symbolising love, fertility and crops. Perhaps Thorunn was praying for her love with Bjørn to be strengthened, or for healthy harvests next season. But he had also said that Freyja was a warrior-goddess. Maybe Thorunn prayed not for love but for her own strength in battle.

She shut her eyes. _Oh Mother_ , she thought, and only saw her own mother’s face. She tried to think of the old gods, and saw only her father, suddenly aged, his skin wrinkling in front of her. _Oh Freyja_ , she thought, _oh Mother, oh my family, please show me what to do. Give me strength to live here, with these people. Show me what I should do. Show me who I am_. 

Sansa opened her eyes and felt nothing at all. Her heart like the metal and mist of the pool. There were no answers. Not from any of the gods.

A small, pert noise made her turn her head. When she looked round, the mist and metal rose to her throat. A wolf. It was the colour of smoke, the first smoke of the fire and the last ashes, moving through the trees, wool winding through wool.

Thorunn heard her inhalation and stopped murmuring. She turned her head and watched with Sansa as the wolf stopped and stood between the trees watching them both. It was utterly motionless apart from the easing out of its flank as it breathed, its belly the shape of a large ship-hull, a smaller one.

As Sansa watched, she felt the mist inside her trailing out like a story from her throat. She watched its journey, weaving in front of her, away over the grass, towards the trees, amongst the trunks to the wolf

_and the mist travelled from the trunks of the trees, over the grass, to the two girls sitting there with their legs folded under them, watching her and_

‘Sansa.’ Thorunn was shaking her arm.

The wolf had gone. Ash and birch trees and mist, and behind her, the still pool.

‘ _Refr_ ,’ Sansa said, her voice not feeling like her own. Like it was travelling, further and further away from her, from them, over the top of the mountain.

Thorunn’s dark eyebrows drew together as if in an arm-wrestle. ‘No’, she said. ‘ _Vargr_.’ She shook Sansa again, vigorously, and spoke very quickly, saying _refr_ at least twice, and gazed at her. ‘No?’ She stood up, brushing the mud off her skirts and putting her hand out. ‘Come.’

They got back onto their horses, heading homewards, the day becoming darker. But, halfway down the mountain track, Thorunn veered off the path and into a mossy dell, where everything dripped. She tugged Sansa by her sleeve down to a sitting position. They were looking into a hollow, where the fat trees sagged like wet skirts, their roots spiralling outwards, splayed limbs.

It was beautiful. Cold, wet, quiet. She wondered which of their gods lived here. The forest wore raindrops like strings of raw pearls, slung along their almost-bare branches. She felt the moisture from the ground begin to seep in through her skirts. Perhaps she would become a tree. She still felt like her voice was drifting somewhere up at the top of the mountain. What were they waiting for? She began to speak, but Thorunn’s hand shot out and covered Sansa’s mouth. And the girl nodded down towards the hollow.

A flash of colour amongst the soaked green and brown. A little red-white triangle of something. Sansa held her breath, stared at the small arched root it had come from. There was a flicker of movement - and there it was. Snuffling in the leaves, yawning.

‘ _Refr_ ,’ whispered Thorunn.

It was a fox.

***

‘What is _raf_?’

Athelstan looked up from his bark-pages. He had become rather consumed by them, so much so that Sansa had seen Ragnar dragging him up by the arm, and threatening to burn every last one of them if he did not do his shield-training.

‘ _Raf_?’ His eyes darted about, before he put a finger out and went outside. Sansa followed him up the path away from the village to a thin tree-line. He was looking intently at the ground and suddenly crouched down. When he righted, he looked as pleased as if he’d found treasure. 

He showed her a leaf. It meant _leaf_? She thought she had already learnt the word for that. Then Athelstan held the stem of the leaf between two fingers, spinning it, before putting his arm out towards her. For a moment, she thought he was going to tickle her with it, and her stomach tugged a little. But instead, he held it against her hair, and pointed at both leaf and hair, and Sansa understood.

They were the same colour. _Raf_ meant amber.

***

The West-er-os girl asks about wolves. 

Ragnar gets Athelstan to tell her a little of Fenrir, of Sköll, chasing the sun. He watches her, her legs tucked up to her chin, listening to the stories. This strange princess, who has made friends with Bjørn’s girl, instead of enemies. Athelstan tells his tales well, as if he has known them all of his life. Even Floki listens, though he looks only into the fire, and Rollo. Sansa’s eyes widen as he tells her of the moon-snatcher. Her eyes have snatched the moon from Hati Hróðvitnisson in turn.

‘Why is it you ask?’ he says.

She tells Athelstan. She speaks and she draws.

‘Each family – maybe only the important families – have a sign, an emblem,’ says Athelstan. ‘Her family’s is the wolf.’ She keeps talking. ‘And there are big wolves.’

‘Show me,’ says Ragnar.

Sansa stands, holds her hand up to her rib. 

‘Giant swords, giant wolves,’ Torstein says. ‘Perhaps this land is Jotunheim.’

She says a word in her own tongue. No one knows it. She says many words to Athelstan. ‘It was her pet,’ he says. ‘She had a giant wolf for her pet. Her companion.’

There is a silence. The sound only of the fire, snapping like jaws. 

***

Perhaps she was not so different from you, from your people. She knew of dragons, and she knew animals. She had come to you again after the stories, pointed at her drawing and said ‘ _wolf_ ’ very firmly. _Yes yes, I understand_ , you had shown her with your face.

She still did not seem like a princess to you, but – there was something about her. As well as her straight back and her snowdrop cheeks. Her words, her drawings – even if they were not very good. Her giant wolf. Running along the bay with Bjørn’s little warrior-girl. 

And now you had given her your own name.

You thought of it as you helped the men put supplies on your boat, the boat that would take you around the coast, to several villages that your brother had sent you to talk to, to gather support for the West-er-os raid.

Little amber fox.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Old Norse school** :
> 
>  ** _Raf_** means amber, and one word for fox, **_refr_** , derives from this. I’m not sure if they’d ever use the words together, seeing as they sort of mean the same thing, but I thought it sounded dead cute. Little _raf refr_ : little amber fox. 
> 
> Rather marvellously, **_vargr_** means wolf in Old Norse. And _vargr_ is often anglicised to _varg_ , or - wait for it - _warg_. 
> 
> **Norse mythology school** :
> 
>  _ **Freyja**_ : goddess of fertility, love, crops and battle. She is as much associated with war and death as she is with attraction, and is also goddess of magic and prophecies. I made up Freyja’s pool. 
> 
> _**Frigg**_ : goddess of marriage and motherhood.
> 
>  _ **Elli**_ : the personification of old age; she represents eternity.
> 
>  _ **Jörð**_ : a giantess, and the personification of the earth; she is the wife of Odin, the mother of Thor.
> 
>  _ **Niflheim**_ : one of the nine realms, the darkest, coldest region of the world. If anything, like it is north of the Wall. 
> 
> _**Jotunheim**_ : one of the nine realms, where giants live.
> 
>  _ **Hati Hróðvitnisson**_ is the wolf that chases the moon across the sky, just as Sköll chase the sun, and is nicknamed ‘moon-snatcher,’ or ‘moon-hound’.
> 
> ***
> 
> With all hat-tips to PurpleMoon3 for warg-suggesting plot-points.


	10. Sansa And The Charm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to split a longish (for me) chapter into two, so have to apologise to Vero for BREAKING MY PROMISE. I hope to make it up to you with the next bit which I'll put up tomorrow.
> 
> It's a relatively dark little chapter, this one, just to warn y'all.

One morning, the longhouse resonated with a cry as long and sharp as a bone. Aslaug was having her baby. 

Sansa was shooed away by Siggy who, along with helping-women, brought in pails of hot water, cold water, furs and linens. Ragnar sat outside, drumming his fingers on the wooden floor, getting up, sitting down again, throwing a dagger at the railing. Once he missed and Floki bent like a reed in a strong wind to avoid it, then putting his hands out very deliberately as a question. Ragnar just glared back at him. 

Aslaug’s cries were terrible. They sounded strong enough to rent the house in two. To break the sky. Everyone walked past swiftly and silently and did not look at Ragnar.

The daylight passed and still she screamed, or hurled out sobs like packs of crows releasing themselves from the trees.

Sansa brought Ragnar a cup of weak ale. He looked at it listlessly, before tipping it up and draining it in one, throwing the cup into the mud. He flung his eyes on her. ‘Why do you tell us so much about your home? If I was in your land, I would not tell them about my home. My people.’ There was an anger there she had not heard before, though she knew it was not really directed at her.

Sansa stood by his arm. ‘My people are dead.’ 

His head jerked away from her towards the bay, fingers rattling on his thigh. The twilight was shuddering into night. ‘Your father?’

‘Dead.’ She saw him in the yard at Winterfell, his face creasing in laughter, his hands folded over his elbows.

Ragnar’s fingers danced more slowly. ‘Your mother?’

‘Dead.’ By your father’s side, a hand tucked into his arm. Her voice of measured admonishment, keeping her amusement in.

‘Brothers and sisters?’ His hand had stilled.

Everyone else, the focus of her parents’ attention, chasing each other around in the mud, Rickon on Robb’s back, Arya running her own arrow-target, Bran stomping his foot. Jon, too. ‘Two brothers. Young. As well as my brother who was King in the North. A sister. A –’ how did you say _half-brother_? ‘Another brother.’ She did not say it again, but he understood just the same. Who was to say if Jon was alive?

A scream, worse than a hurricane, and Ragnar flinched, hissing between his teeth as if he was the one in pain. ‘Go,’ he said. 

Sansa picked up the cup, staying well out reach of his feet in case he felt like kicking her, and returned inside. Carefully, she walked to the far end of the longhouse and pulled the curtain back a little.

There was a smell like iron, and a smell like sweating onions. Aslaug was kneeling on the floor, her arms being held outstretched by a helping-woman on either side, her head hanging down. One of the women was singing, low and keening, and Aslaug’s whimpers wove their own, thin song.

Blood covered the floor.

***

His wife lies, bloodless, soulless, all her dragon-fire gone. His son has emerged from her a stone, pale as bone, a winter leaf. 

He has five sons and all he sees is this one he has lost, and the mother who has borne them all, reduced to bones under the thinnest bark. He sits by her side as night passes back into day, ignores all offers of food or drink, and watches his wife.

Helping-women sing their prayers to Eir. He thinks of them all, the shining white healer-goddesses, sees them lined up by the bed. Hlíf, Hlífþrasa, Þjóðvarta. Björt, Blíð, Blíðr. Fríð and Örboða. They know he is angry with them all.

Siggy brings a whalebone that a healer-man has scratched into. The runes look meaningless to him, but he allows her to place them under the bed nonetheless. He senses their shapes like a criss-cross of bones in the earth. Bones, bones, bones.

Once his wife had woken up and stared at him, the eyes of a cat, the eyes of winter. ‘I must accept my fate. I must prepare for death,’ she had said. 

‘No,’ he had said, and leant forward, fierce. ‘ _No_.’

The princess-girl is there, a flicker of flame at the door. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Go away.’

She doesn’t move. Instead, she sits on the other side of his wife, a cup in her hand. ‘Vinegar,’ she says. ‘Garlic leaf. Sage.’

He nods and she leans over, helps Aslaug tilt her head up, though she is drowsy, half-asleep, and Sansa must catch it as it trails down her chin. The girl sits back down, folds her hands, as Athelstan did when he was first here.

There is an owl at the window. A little-ear, eyes bright as _bekkeblom_ , feathers dappled like rain on bark. It makes a cry, just once. Disappears.

A sound, and for a moment you think it is the owl’s cry in the deep folds of night, but it is not. Sansa has begun to sing. She is looking at his wife and singing, in her own tongue, words which sound like rainfall. She sings well. He sits back, watches his wife.

The song ends. Aslaug’s eyes remain closed.

Nothing is said. He knows she is lost.

***

Sansa and Athelstan sat in what had become his workplace, a shed which had once housed goats – and in fact, did still harbour a baby goat or two, bumbling in accidentally and being nudged out by Athelstan, or grabbed by Sansa and placed on her lap. Athelstan had created a small library of thin bark-pieces, storing their two languages, piled up in rows on a rough table. 

It was very quiet outside. Rollo had taken men with him on his journey around the coast to meet with earls, and many other families were gathering in final harvests. 

Slowly, Aslaug had begun to improve. That long night, Sansa had sat with Ragnar and sung Gentle Mother, as Old Nan had done when Rickon was born, shrieking out into the world and causing their mother such pain that her father had slung swords into the pond. Over the days that followed, a little berry-colour had returned to the queen’s cheeks and she slept less, though remained in bed. Ragnar, however, did not lighten as his wife’s health returned. He slunk around the village, clad in the woollen hooded coat he sometimes wore, his eyes diamonds in a dark room. Everyone seemed to walk on tiptoes, as if they knew not to disturb their king. 

In the library-shed, Sansa watched Athelstan as he leant over his newest bark-sheets, his dark eyebrows furrowed. This time he wasn’t writing. He was drawing, showing her the decorated borders he used to create on his books in the monastery, using knife-sharpened charcoal to trace ornate curls and plaited lines that made her think of Cersei’s finest jewels.

He sat back on his heels, a small laugh of frustration coming out in a breath. ‘It’s not the same. I need ink, and pigments. This should be red, and this green.’

‘It’s still beautiful.’

Sansa had always known that Athelstan was different, but she had thought that perhaps he was from another part of this land – that his family lived further away, and perhaps Ragnar had found him and wanted him for his languages. Now she knew his story, how he had been a holy man – a monk, in his tongue, and had lost his family.

She thought of her dead. She thought of them like a book, no longer as bodies but memories pressed onto paper, pages she turned carefully, with effort. Athelstan was just the same as her – plucked away from his homeland, a place where he had lost everything, starting afresh here.

‘Do you miss it?’ she said. ‘Eng-land?’

‘No. I have been back. It – it wasn’t good.’ He swallowed and looked into the fire. The charcoal idled between his fingers. Something seemed to have taken him over, a heavy coat of resin.

‘Athelstan?’ she said, very gently. ‘What happened?’

He seemed restless suddenly, his hands folding over themselves. ‘I only know the word in English. I was _________.’

When Sansa looked confused, he took a piece of fresh bark and drew. A long, thin horizontal block and another, shorter one crossing it. A body appeared, and her heart rose to her throat as she realised what it was. It was him. The marks on his hands were from nails, hammered in. Nails in his feet. A garland of nails, or perhaps rose-thorns, around his head. She wanted to be sick.

Instead she said his name, slowly, as if naming him for the first time. ‘ _Athelstan_.’ 

He swallowed as she took his palm, turning it over to look at the scar, finding its point mirrored on the other side of his hand. She said his name again. There weren’t even words in her own tongue she could say now. Not for this.

He smiled at her, but it was a smile that held back only pain, and horror. And she carried on cradling both of his hands, her thumbs on the wounds, and turning them over, as if hoping that at some point, the mark would not be on the other side, and a final turn would make them gone.

***

‘Ragnar.’ Floki is there.

‘What is it.’ He doesn’t make it much of a question, sitting on his balcony, looking out onto a bay that gives no answers.

Words in his ear, like little insects. ‘It is Winternights. The village needs to know if we are to feast tonight.’

Feasts. Wild Hunts. Why should he hunt – what for? The seer had told him the gods had taken little and given much. Words that sat like pebbles in his stomach. 

Ragnar stands, pulls his hood over his head. ‘Yes, you should feast. I will not.’ 

And he walks away, up the village path, towards the mountains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse school of childbirth and midwifery** :  
> I had had an idea that Sansa could cure Aslaug with some ingenious developed medicine, seeing as there’s approximately three hundred years between the worlds. But looking into medieval birthing practices, they really weren’t any further along, relying just as much as the early Norse people on songs and charms. The Norse sang _galdr-songs_ (healing songs) and carved runes into bones, placing them under the bed. I figured that Sansa singing her own hymn was as good as anything else.
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  **Eir** : Norse goddess of healing; much was left to fate, not medicine, and healer-gods were as much about simply deciding who would live, rather than necessarily curing.
> 
> I found these other healer-goddesses in a verse from the Prose Edda poem _Fjölsvinnsmál_ ; this text is I think far too late for 8th-century Vikings, but I loved the sounds of the names:  
>  _Fjölsviðr spoke:_  
>  "Hlíf (Helper) is one named, Hlífþrasa (Help-Breather) another,  
> Þjóðvarta (Folk-Guardian) call they the third;  
> Björt (Shining) and Blíð (White), Blíðr (Blithe) and Fríð (Peaceful),  
> Eir and Örboða (Gold-Giver)"
> 
>  **Norse wildflower school** (hhm, probably starting to overdo this a bit):  
>  _ **Bekkeblom**_ – the yellow marsh marigold
> 
> ***  
> I promise a fun chapter tomorrow!


	11. Sansa In The Winternights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Vero, for cutting Rollo loose in the last chapter :)

Winternights. 

The village began to transform as the day waned, with fires lit inside and out, candles peppering the paths and the table-tops. Cooking pits were made and pigs grunted and squealed as they were slaughtered. The smells of roast deer and elk, boiled cabbage and red seaweed, baked rye and barley bread filled the longhouse - Aslaug had insisted it be used as it usually would, even though she was in her bed-chamber at the far end.

It was a feast, Athelstan had explained, to celebrate the hunting season and to ask for protection against the coming cold. He had also said that it was to celebrate the dead, watching her carefully as he did so. He now knew about her dead as much as she knew about his. 

Winter. The dead. Sansa felt full of memory, both warm and painful, as she sat next to him at the end of a feast-table, eating boiled bacon and fish, crusted with salt and rosemary. The longhouse was packed with people. At the far end of her table, Bjørn entertained his young half-brothers with goat-bone swords and bread- shields. 

‘Where is Ragnar?’ she asked Athelstan.

He took some more bread. ‘He has gone up to the top of the mountain. There are old graves there.’

‘But – does he not want to feast?’

It was getting noisy. Athelstan leant closer. She could feel his warm breath on her ear. ‘It is believed that if you sit on a grave all night, on this night, that you will have –‘ he was searching for the easiest words. ‘You will be able to talk to the gods. You will have the power to heal others. You will have the gift of poet-’

There was a sudden, alarming noise, like a cow giving birth. 

Floki was standing on a table, a horn at his lips. When everyone stopped and turned to him, he looked amazed by the attention and giggled, looking at Helga. She, with her baby swaddled to her chest, nodded with solemn encouragement, her ringed black eyes shining.

‘It has come to me,’ he said, unfurling a hand, ‘I hardly know why, to begin our Winternights feast on ________ of King Ragnar.’ _Behalf_? He took a different horn, streaked brown and cream and with an ornate bronze rim, from Torstein and stood tall. How had she ever thought him a fool?

‘On this night, we ________ our feast to the _Dísir_ for watching over our queen.’ _Offer. Dedicate_. There were nods and murmurs around the room as he held it towards the wooden walls that separated the main room from Ragnar’s own house. ‘And in their honour, we first ask our ladies, our own _Dísir_ who keep watch over their men like sparrowhawks over their eggs -‘ he grabbed his crotch and giggled again, to groans and laughter from everyone. ‘To drink.’ And he cast his eyes about the room, before settling on Sansa. ‘Princess.’ 

He unwrapped his arm like a ribbon towards her.

 _Her_? Oh Gods. Athelstan was looking at her, a smile on his face. _Go on_. She smiled, sat up straight, and took the horn from Floki. A small sip. Mead and ale, mixed. Honeyed and bitter. 

Everyone cheered.

***

It is a long walk to the top of the mountain. There are no trees and the wind is an opposing shield-wall.

Below, Ragnar can hear the revelry of the village, sweet and dark as elderberries bursting. He can see the flickering fires. But they are not for him on this night. 

He is to be alone. Him and his gods.

***

Feasting had turned into drinking and drinking into laughing and dancing to the two drums, drums that never seemed to stop. Drums like the waves. 

Sansa danced. Dancing had always been something done with a partner, even in Winterfell, waiting to be asked by some elderly lord that she couldn’t refuse. Dancing had been something done with Joffrey, whispers in her ear of everything he would do to her, digging at her ribs with his fingers. Here, Thorunn had pulled her up and wiggled violently in front of her until she couldn’t help but do the same. It felt utterly wild, free. She was a wildling, one of the freefolk, her own North, a _wolf_. 

She danced amongst the drums and a flute, high, bird-curling above the pounding skin-rhythms. Occasionally she felt the hands of someone on her hips, but Thorunn always bashed them away, or dragged Sansa to a different corner.

After what seemed like a whole night of dancing and drumming, Sansa flung her arms down. Her head was reeling a little.

Thorunn grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘ _No_.’

‘I can’t. I have to stop.’

Her face was very close. ‘No, Sansa. _Do not stop_.’ It was very difficult to say no to this girl. The girl who insisted she rise early to run and kept trying to make her lift logs, squeezing her upper arms as you would to test the ripeness of a melon.

Thorunn glanced over Sansa’s shoulder and suddenly wheeled her round. As she turned, almost stumbling, she felt warm liquid spatter her face and her hair. She unscrewed her eyes to find Bjørn holding a bowl of something in one hand, and a wooden spoon dripping with red liquid in the other. He was grinning broadly.

Sansa put a finger to her face, eyed it and placed it on her tongue. Thick, metallic. ‘Bilberries?’ she said.

‘No. Pig’s blood,’ said Bjørn, beaming. Thorunn yelled something, jumped on his back, her legs sticking out, and they weaved through the crowd, Bjørn flicking his blood across people’s faces, and everyone holding their chins up, ecstatic.

Pig’s blood. She looked across the room to see Athelstan, propped up on his elbows on furs, a cup in his hand, grinning at her. 

***

Máni and Alvsinder pull the moon across the sky. 

Ragnar counts his sons on his fingers, holds his hand up so that it seems as if he is holding the moon.

He shivers.

***

Sansa was tired. Perhaps it was time for bed. Though she couldn’t possibly sleep with the noise everyone was making. Shouting and singing and laughter. The room had become emptier, and she hadn’t helped but notice men taking women’s hands, or women taking men’s hands, and their smiles and nods as they disappeared from the longhouse. She knew she should be shocked, but the ways of these people were becoming more apparent to her. She had dared ask Athelstan about it two days ago, and felt as brazen as a whore for even mentioning it.

But Athelstan had received her question as he would have one on sentence structure.‘Yes,’ he had said, with a small smile. ‘It took me a while to get used to it. It is not the way of my old country either. But –‘ he glanced at her with a pensive look, one that turned brighter. ‘It is better, I think. People are more free here.’ There was a faint blush on his cheek, a dusk-rose against the black of his beard, and he hadn’t asked why she had wanted to know.

Now, as she stood, wobbling faintly, she watched as a girl with curling brown hair stood by Athelstan, trying to pull him up. He was shaking his head and smiling back, not in the least embarrassed. 

‘Hello, Blóðughadda.’ Floki was behind her, a long snake-curl grin on his face. He always called her that. _Blood-red sea-foam_. It didn’t sound like a compliment.

‘Hello, Floki.’ She still found him a little frightening, this man, though he had been nothing but kind to her since she had drawn the boats. He would come clutching his own pieces of bark now, showing her them, and she would do her very best to nod and re-draw and wonder if he was going to build a boat that would only sink to the bottom of their sea.

‘A gift for you on Winternights,’ he said, his voice like a song, and lifted an arm. On the tips of his fingers sat a wooden bowl of steaming liquid, with small round things bobbing in it.

‘Oh no, thank you.’ Sansa put her hand on her belly. ‘I am fat.’ Not fat. ‘ _Full_.’

Floki’s cheeks remained high. ‘No,’ he said, and the word sounded like a long, bending string being played. ‘This is a ______.’ _Dessert? Delicacy_? 

His smile was the sort that wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and took the bowl from him, sipping. It was salty, oily, with little soft dense things she could chew on.

He stood watching her, waving his fingers upwards. _Drink, drink_.

She would definitely not have room for berries and buttermilk now.

***

It is cold on the barrow-mound. It is cold and he will stay here, listening to his loss. To his grief. His grief is the wind whistling over the mountains. It is the eagle-cry. It is the heave of the waves on the rocks. 

Ragnar does not care for the gift of poetry on this night, but it is in him nevertheless, like a curse.

He does not care for the gift of healing, for his heart cannot be healed. He thinks of his daughter. He thinks he sees Gyda there, in the sky, riding Máni’s chariot.

He will wait for his gods to come. To come and explain why they have done this to him. Why they have taken another son. 

***

The night had become a long song. Sansa moved through a long song of people, their arms waving like nests of asps, like fish amongst seaweed, like trees tumbling in a storm, like locks of hair in the wind, like silks in a market. She put out her hand, and touched them. _Asps fish trees hair silks. Fish trees hair asps silks_. She saw their open mouths. _Silk-mouths. Tree-hair_. Some of them touched her back as she drifted through them, making her giggle.

Among the faces were those she knew very well. Bjørn. Siggy. Her father. Helga. Torstein. Her mother. Floki. Robb. Thorunn. People of winter and the north. She could not see Bran, or Rickon, or -

A wave of northern sea. What was happening? When had everything - 

The floor. Straw and mud and wood. The fire. 

Everything had lost their edges. Tables dripped. The fire became liquid and she wondered about drinking some, though something deep down in her told her not to put her face near the flames. She put her hand out instead.

‘Hey _raf refr_ , what are you doing?’

A tall man, brown hair, brown fur, green eyes. He could be anyone. 

‘I don’t know. Fire.’

Sitting down next to her. ‘Fire. You are all fire. I think I could cut you open and fire would come out.’ He was saying strange things. Her tongue was heavy and thick with tar. ‘Hey, don’t touch that.’ A hand on her wrist. A hand waving in front of her face. ‘What is wrong with you?’

She thought very much about putting her head on the man’s shoulder. The fur looked so soft. Like the fur of a direwolf. She touched it. He was very far away. Her hand had to cross the sea.

‘Hello,’ he said, as if they had just met. Eyes right in front of hers, very close. Eyes like tree-roots and moss. Staring.

She put her head on his shoulder.

‘Are you tired?’ His thumb was still on her wrist.

She wanted to sleep forever, right here.

‘Where’s your wolf?’

‘Over there. With my mother.’ A flash of snowdrift tail next to her skirts.

The flames danced. The burning wood was a drum.

‘ _Floki_ ,’ the man whispered, and he laughed through his nose and shook his head, his hair tugging underneath her ear.

She knew Floki. Floki the snake. Floki the smile. Floki the dragon-boat. His shoulder was warm. Direwolf fur. ‘Is it you?’ she said. 

He turned to face her, holding her up by the shoulder with one hand. One of his knees was bent up, his other leg around her a little. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ His voice was warm and low, like the sound of spring remembering itself under the earth.

Sansa put a hand up to his face. It was soft above the beard, and the beard was as soft as direwolf fur. She had always wondered what he would feel like -

***

Bloody Floki. Bloody mushrooms. He had a store of them, different types for every occasion. Sometimes you wondered if he ate them for every morning meal. It would explain a lot. When you thought of mushrooms, you thought of being sticky with blood, leaping over a shield wall, or you thought of having sex with pretty women in the woods, both of you swimming in dream-fog. But it was not the same if you hadn’t had any as well. And Sansa - she seemed to think you were someone else.

You had returned to Kattegat in time for the end of the first Winternights feast, and the West-er-os princess, with eyes like dead trunks filled with water, had put her hand on your cheek. Her hair like summer foxfur, her smell of sweet onion. Blood-speckled nose. Blood and freckles. She touched the other side of your face, and before you could put your hand over hers, her look had changed from drifting to sharp, and she removed it as if she’d been stung. As if you were fire, or ice. 

‘Where are they?’ she had said, and you wondered if she thought you had stolen something of hers, or if she just wanted more mushrooms. 

And before you could say anything, she had got up, almost tripped over her skirts, and stumbled away, and you saw Siggy, watching you in the corner.

***

There is a flash of red in the lightening sky. Dellingr comes. 

Ragnar thinks of the princess, the girl-of-wolves, telling him that she had no family at all whilst his son died. And yet here she stands, tall, speaking his words, learning to layer them as Floki does with tree-planks. 

Living. Moving forwards.

It is time to return to his village. To be with his family. To look west. More west than west. He has five sons. One has a dragon in his eye. One has legs that are not legs. One is as strong as a mountain, as fierce and as light as the wind. His wife –

It is time.

***

Sansa woke with soil in her mouth. She put her fingers on her tongue. There was no soil in her mouth.

Soil in her skull. There must have been soil in her skull. She carefully pressed her fingers to her forehead. There seemed to be no soil there.

The drumming was still going on. In her ears, it was still there.

She could remember music and laughing and people in front of her like a forest. Thorunn with her arms in the air. Being carried around on Bjørn’s back. Athelstan taking her hand and sitting her down and giving her water to drink. She could remember a man with fur on his shoulders. A warm voice full of breath. 

Ragnar was leaning on the wall to her little chamber, looking at her. He looked less sad.

‘Good morning, princess,’ he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse mythology school** :
> 
> When I first read about the **_Winternights_** festival, I thought it meant the winter solstice, which would have been perfect, seeing as that’s just happened. However, it is in fact the end of October, and is a three-day festival (ha! Poor Sansa’s only just done one day!) of much drinking and feasting to celebrate the ‘Wild Hunt’, the six-month long period of winter. It is a time when the dead are said to walk the earth, and one in which you may find out your fate for the coming year. It precedes and/or is related to the Celtic Samhain festival, Hallowe’en and the Day of the Dead, among others.
> 
> It was said, as Athelstan tells Sansa, that if you sat on a grave all night long, you would gain full divinatory, shamanic ( _galdr_ and _seith_ ) and bardic ( _skaldr_ ) powers.
> 
> The word _**Dísir**_ simply means 'ladies' or 'maidens'. The _**Dísir**_ were a family's female ancestral spirits who, according to various accounts, could behave like guardian angels, protective warrior goddesses, or fetches appearing to those about to die.
> 
>  _ **Máni**_ is the Norse god of the moon.
> 
>  _ **Alsvinder**_ is the horse that pulls the Moon’s chariot driven by Máni.
> 
>  _ **Dellingr**_ is the Norse god of the dawn.
> 
> A reminder that _**Blóðughadda**_ is one of Aegir and Ran's daughters of the sea, with blood-red hair.
> 
> Happy (just gone) winter solstice everyone! 
> 
> The next chapter will have more seasonal fun!


	12. Sansa at Jul (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Christmas day present!
> 
> This chapter comes in two parts - the next one tomorrow! Both chapters are for Jillypups, who is SICK.*
> 
> *Both in the traditional sense BUT it also means BADASS in English slang.

Three words, like a poem, like a refrain, something threaded through most of her life, three words like pearls strung on a sinew, like blood and bones. They had finally come true.

Winter had come.

Snowflakes fell, like pale stars. They fell and settled, light as butterfly wings, at first. But as the snow kept falling, Sansa thought of it as a heavier thing, like dense mud, or blankets, piled high. Memories of being very small, wrapped in bear and beaverfur, huddled up with her mother in front of a fire that seemed as big as the whole room, while she told her stories of knights and maidens and dragons.

A change came over the village. As if everyone was asleep. People did not venture outside so much but ate from their winter stores, brought their shoulders into their chests, sat round the fire as if it was the one telling them stories, stories they must hear the end of.

The nights were bitter. Sansa had managed to move her bed further away from Ragnar and Aslaug’s, but sometimes she could still see them wrapped up warm together, and wondered what that would feel like. 

Jul came. The Northmen’s darkest winter nights seemed to be the time to celebrate the rebirth of the sun. Sansa hadn’t understood why you would hope for the sun to return so soon, until Athelstan had told her that the summer always came back after six cycles of the moon, and the days grew lighter bit by bit. For once, he looked at her as if she was a bit of idiot. So their winters were short here, but they had teeth.

‘It is the night of the Wild Ride, and all the dead are in the sky, in the trees, walking amongst us.’ 

She was wrapped in a woollen blanket close to the fire in their own end of the longhouse. Aslaug sat with her long legs folded underneath her, running languid fingers through the hair of Ivar, who was propped on her lap. Sigurd had his head on his mother’s knee, only his startling eye open.

Ragnar ran his fingers over the arms of Hvitserk and Ragnvald before pointing up to the roof. ‘And look.’ He crouched very close to them and dropped his voice, which was full of dark air and magic. ‘There is our ancestor, the great god Odin, on his horse. Can you see him? And there is Sleipnir, with his one, two, three, four, fivesixseven, _eight_ legs so that he can ride across all of the sky in a night. Have you left him food to eat?’ 

Both of the boys nodded, wide-eyed, little warriors fighting sleep. 

‘Then we will wait until morning to see if Odin has visited us.’ And he stood, picked up both boys by the scruffs of their necks, and dumped them on a pile of furs.

Now, her back ached. Ragnar had told her, as she had got up to go to bed, that she must sleep on the floor, and she wondered what on earth she had done to displease him. He was so unpredictable sometimes – gloom-filled or fizzing with questions, squatting on his knees in front of her, staring her soul out. But behind him that night, his young sons had stood sleepily, clutching blankets, Aslaug’s hands on their shoulders. Everyone was going to be sleeping on the floor.

‘The dead are here,’ Ragnar had said to her, as if it were obvious. ‘They need our beds.’

The dead were so _alive_ here. Sansa lay awake, close to the others for warmth, listening to the four boys wriggle like caterpillars. She remembered how a battle-dreaming Arya would kick her shins or little Bran and Rickon would tumble over each other on top of her when she wanted to do nothing but sleep. She wished she could picture their faces properly.

A shadow had risen during the night. A shadow with two glittering eyes. Ragnar had bent down to her and put his finger to her lips. _Oh Gods. Not this. Not now_. She had hardly been able to breathe. But then he had crept to the fireplace and tipped out the two boots that Hvitserk and Ragnvald left there, hay and balls of honey and butter falling onto the flames.

Athelstan, who usually had the privacy of a separate chamber at this end of the house, was sleeping at the other end of the row of bodies on the floor. Sansa had stared at the back of his head, trying to imagine the horror of his torture, nails ramming into flesh and veins and bone, and failing. 

A sweet, burnt smell filled the room.

***

It was good to be back in the village after so much travelling. You had visited seven villages and secured the allegiance of five earls before the snows had become too thick, the air too icy to sail further.

‘How many men?’ your brother had said, as soon as you stepped onto the boardwalk. Another animal drawn on his head, at the back of his ear. An eagle. The collection was growing. They all snarled.

 _Hello brother, it is good to see you too_. ‘Three hundred,’ you had told him and he had not looked pleased enough. Lagertha had also found two hundred men but your brother seemed to want the moon. ‘It is winter, brother,’ you had said. ‘The mood is as dark as the days are. We will go back in the spring when eyes look forward.’

The mood was better now. The heart of Jul, a time for eating and drinking as much as possible. All for Odin of course. Everything smelt roasted, salty, ready for your stomach. The women looked shiny-cheeked and pretty. You were aware of the dark flash of fox-colour further down your table and thought about other things to fill your mouth.

‘We make this offering to Hel at this time of Jul.’ Your nephew had the attention of the room, though he occasionally glanced at your brother for – what? Assurance? Approval? Something your brother seemed to hate to give, you didn’t know why.

‘We ask Hel to watch us in her dark winter, and protect us from the cold and from hunger.’ A voice built almost as well as the rest of him. Bjørn held the youngling goat by the ears. Its legs shook like dandelion stems in an autumn breeze.

You wondered what it would be like to have a son. Siggy did not fall pregnant - perhaps she was too old now. Her children had all died. Perhaps they were cursed. You did not know if you wanted a child with her. Neither of you ever spoke of it. 

‘We ask her to watch over our dead as they travel among us, and to help them in their journeys.’ Bjørn’s knife glinted above his head before he slit the goat’s throat. Blood poured into the pail beneath it. 

Your brother looked a little unwell. As if he wished he was Thor. Not always the strong one, then.

***

‘It has been a good year.’

Faces are all turned towards him. If he doesn’t look at the pail of blood he will be fine.

Ragnar sits up straighter. It is his duty to host this feast, however much sometimes he would rather be looking at his maps, dreaming of the new lands so far to the west. ‘We have met with difficulty, as we always do. Sometimes the gods want my children for themselves.’ Aslaug gives him a pained smile. ‘But I am blessed with a family of strong sons, and a wife who is stronger than all of them.’ Murmurs of agreement. ‘And so it is to my wife that we look to to present our drinking bowl.’

She stands, a single silver-birch in a field, and a slave passes the great metal bowl to her. She holds it out. ‘Rollo,’ she says.

His brother is gnawing at a boar-leg and doesn’t hear his name immediately. Siggy nudges him with her elbow and he stops chewing, sits up.

She says his name again and he glances at Ragnar. Ragnar nods. Rollo wipes his mouth slowly on the back of his hand, rises and goes over to Aslaug. He kneels at her feet.

‘Rollo, I fetch to you, great warrior, with might blended and bright fame, the full is strong with songs and healing-staves, with goodly chants, wish-speeding runes.’

Rollo bows his head, gives a solemn smile, a smile from the heart, and takes the bowl from her. He drinks from the bowl and passes it to Floki, who wears a long red cloak and a goat-mask which covers half his face, and who has made many children cry tonight, much to his amusement. Floki drinks and passes the bowl on.

Rollo casts another look at his brother, who gives a small, measured nod-blink back. Part-king, part-brother. Ragnar knows he is hasty sometimes, asks his brother for much, does not reward. Tonight he reminds him of his love. 

***

 _Eddard Stark. Catelyn Stark_.

Another feast-night, one of many. Sansa had managed to avoid drinking too much since Winternights and had evaded Floki’s offerings, made with a knowing giggle behind closed lips, ever since. That night had remained as cloudy as a shaken horn full of ale.

 _Robb Stark, The King In The North. Arya Stark_.

Still, she had taken the large bowl as it was passed round, dipped her bird-shaped cup in, and drunk. It was flavoured with ground ivy and dark berries, and with it she embraced her memories. _Bran Stark. Rickon Stark_. At King’s Landing, even thinking of her family had felt like a crime, but here she uttered their names, one by one, as she sipped, and though quiet tears fell, they were small, soft jewels. Tears that were allowed to be worn.

Later, everyone gathered round the fire to sing songs, recite poetry, tell stories. Sansa now understood that these people had no books. That their stories lived on tongues, not paper. That they travelled through families, along bloodlines, filtering down from parent to child, child becoming parent and handing it down again. Heirlooms. And as they travelled, the stories turned their colours slowly, like a stone changed as it was tilted in the light.

Aslaug was a wonderful, gentle storyteller. She had the attention of all of the children in the longhouse, who sat at her feet as she spun images of Skadi on her long wooden shoes, scything over the mountains after running deer.

At the back of the group, Rollo sat with his legs slung outwards, cradling an instrument with two strings and occasionally making the tiniest sound by half-heartedly plucking a string. He seemed tired after all of his travels. He had looked at her strangely these few days that he had been back in the village, as if expecting her to say something, as if to continue a conversation they had abandoned. But whilst she had a dull memory of sitting with him on Winternights, she had had no idea what had been said. She hoped to the gods it hadn’t been untowards.

Now Sansa watched as Bjørn put his finger to his lips at the children, snuck up behind him and twanged one string extremely loudly before erupting into laughter. Rollo lazily grabbed him by one leg of his breeches and pulled him down, before pouring beer over his head. It was good to see this side of him, the side that loved his nephew, the side that didn’t scowl or ask her to have sex with him.

‘Sansa.’

Siggy was there, squatting down next to her in that soft, graceful manner she had. She sometimes reminded Sansa of a sea-bird resting on the water, much activity below the surface, and nothing but calm above.

‘I have brought you something,’ she said, her voice warm, passing her a polished horn cup.

Siggy had not spoken to Sansa properly since she had visited so long ago with her gift. Sansa had taken it to mean that she either hated her embroidery or somehow definitely knew what Rollo had asked her. She didn’t dare ask. 

‘Thank you.’ She held her nose to the rim of the cup. The liquid was dark, almost blood-red, and steam curled up from it. 

‘Spiced redcurrant,’ Siggy said. ‘I warmed it for you. It has no beer in it.’ A mildly wry smile, almost motherly.

Perhaps she had forgiven her. Although there was nothing to forgive. Sansa had only ever behaved courteously to Rollo and little more, except she found herself blushing when he called her his nickname, which he only ever did if he was passing her, and alone.

Sansa took a sip. It had a piquancy to it she realised she had been craving since she had been here. These Northpeople did not eat sweet things – there were no lemons, no spun sugar, no cinammon-dusted almonds. Her diet had reduced to meats and grain, and she had found herself gorging on the nutty sweetness of a hard goat’s cheese and on handfuls of bitter berries until she felt sick.

‘It’s good. Very good.’ She drank again. _Delicious_ , she wanted the word for. 

Siggy watched her, and then looked around the room until she found Athelstan. Sansa followed her gaze. He was nodding earnestly at something Torstein was saying and scratching behind his ear.

‘He is a very good man,’ Siggy said, glancing at her.

‘He is. He has been so kind. I would not have been able to speak so much of your language without him.’

‘He likes you.’

‘I like him, too.’

‘No, Sansa.’ Siggy turned back to her. ‘He – can you not see it? He does not spend so much time with other women, you know.’

Sansa felt an involuntary blush rush to her cheeks, all of Highgarden’s roses rushing into her face. ‘He has taught me. It is to help me.’

Athelstan suddenly burst out laughing at something Torstein had said, to which another man thumped him on the shoulder. He looked so different when he smiled. His whole face turned from dawn to day. He caught Sansa’s eye and she quickly looked at her knees.

Siggy put a hand out and brushed a lock of Sansa’s hair behind her hair. ‘Sansa, I have spent enough time in the ________ of men to know.’ _Company? Pleasure_? Gods. Her voice was as warm as the redcurrant drink. ‘It is more than just wanting to help you.’

Her mouth felt sticky. She rubbed at the corner of it with her thumb, and found Athelstan watching her again. A gentle smile, as always. This time she didn’t look at her knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse mythology school** :
> 
>  ** _Jul_** is a twelve-day festival of the Norse New Year, and the most important of all of their holidays. It starts on December 20th. The god of Jul was _Julne_ , who was also Odin. Jul also refers to the beer supped liberally during these celebrations, which was supposed to bring one closer to the gods.
> 
> During this time, the Wild Hunt is at its greatest fervour, and the dead are said to range across the earth, led by Odin and his eight-legged horse _**Sleipnir**_. Odin became Wotan who became Santa Claus, and Sleipnir became his reindeer. Jul became Yule, of course!
> 
>  _ **Minnis-öl**_ is literally ‘memory ale’, used in the sense of ‘an enchanted or charmed drink’, and was passed around in order to encourage drinkers to think of their dead. 
> 
> The poem that Aslaug delivers to Rollo is taken from the Eddaic poem _Sigurdrífumál_ , though I replaced the name _Bjór_ with Rollo. This is what it looks like in the Old Norse!
> 
>  
> 
> _Rollo færi ek þér, brynþings apaldr,_  
>  magni blandinn ok megintíri,  
> fullr er hann ljóða ok líknstafa,  
> góðra galdra ok gamanrúna.
> 
>  
> 
>  _ **Hel**_ is the Norse goddess of winter and death.
> 
>  _ **Thor**_ used to sacrifice his goats for feasting and then bring them back to life with his hammer. Cue my Ragnar joke. Ahahahaha.
> 
>  _ **Skadi**_ is the goddess of winter, hunting and skiing!
> 
> ***
> 
> Big-time seasonal/winter/Christmas/etc love to all readers and commenters!


	13. Sansa at Jul (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter carries straight on from the previous one, on the same night...

‘More singing,’ said your brother. ‘I demand it.’

Quiet laughter. The sound of someone falling over. Everyone was sleepy and full of blackberry ale, mead. Arms draped over legs, legs draped over arms. You had eaten so much pig it was possible you would wake up as one in the morning.

‘No one is singing,’ Ragnar said, slumped on his throne. ‘I will punish you all.’ 

‘We are too tired,’ said Torstein. ‘There are no more songs left.’

‘There are always songs.’ He rubbed his hand over his face, glanced around, sat up a little straighter. ‘Princess,’ he said, in the sort of voice he used when he saw a church he wanted to raid.

The little _raf refr_ was half-asleep on your nephew’s shoulder, with the warrior-girl on the other side. Both of their heads came up. 

She blinked the blink of a chipmunk who has come out of hibernation too early. ‘Me? No.’ She smiled and her head fell back down. 

Bjørn grinned at his father. You remembered her foxhead on your shoulder on Winternights. She had not remembered it, or at least never spoken of it in the few times you had seen her, just looked at you like you might eat her. You, on the other hand, had thought of it often, thought what might have happened had Siggy not been there, had Sansa not stumbled away. Warmth and wetness under her skirts. Your own name on her lips, which you were perhaps biting.

Bloody Floki. Bloody mushrooms.

‘You, _yes_ ,’ said your brother, shifting in his chair. King-voiced.

‘I don’t know any songs.’ Her words were plentiful now. Sometimes she spoke almost as if she was born in these lands.

‘Yes, you do.’

‘Sing to us, Sansa,’ said Aslaug, smiling at her, a queen-smile.

You knew that she could not bring herself to refuse her. She sat up properly, flames in her cheeks. You could see her ribcage move from over here as she took in an ale-gulp of breath, thinking.

‘This is a song my –‘ she stopped. ‘An old lady sang to me in wintertime. When I was small. Our winters are long. It is about the trees that are green in winter. And the gods in the trees.‘ Her eyes darted, quick as Ratatosk, to Floki. His smile was colder, but he nodded. He hated other gods.

The room had gone quiet. The girl had become almost one of us and this was a reminder that she was not. That she might have a new song that none of us might have heard.

It was in her own tongue. You had hardly heard her speak in it. You had forgotten, almost, that she had this other language, that she did not only speak in yours, with that limp in her mouth. Her song moved like a walk on small hills. Her words changed but the tune did not. Smaller, less broad than the songs of your own people. 

Your brother was right. She sang well. People looked at their boots, or at the fire, or the roof, and listened.

She stopped. Clapping, and murmurs growing as folk went back to their own talk, words becoming louder around her stillness. She seemed to be caught in her song, though it had stopped, caught as a hare in a trap - still alive, but not moving.

‘I know you like her.’ Siggy, appearing like a trick of Freyja’s, right by your ear.

‘Who?’

‘Rollo. Don’t. Not with me.’ She settled properly next to you. ‘You don’t know who she is. What is true.’ Her voice was a sea-mist as she laid a hand on your shoulder. ‘She cannot help you.’

 _Nor can you_ , you thought.

She kept going and you tried not to listen. ‘King Horik – you knew who he was because we saw his people. You saw his home. We do not know her home. Her people. It may just be words.’ Spoken as gently as if it were one of Aslaug’s stories for the children.

You shoved her hand off. ‘Don’t ever say that dead man’s name to me again,’ you said, rising and leaving her.

***

His son is next to his little shieldmaiden with the eyebrows like dark moss. She is frightened of Ragnar. 

‘Go and get us some more ale,’ he says to her. Bjørn looks displeased that she has been spoken to like a slave when she no longer is one, but she goes. She is happy to go, he thinks.

‘She is a pretty one, your woman,’ he says.

‘Yes, Father. She is.’

‘There are many pretty women here.’

Bjørn’s eyes furrow, before he looks round and grins. ‘It is true, Father. Perhaps we are blessed in Kattegat.’

‘I could not help noticing that you had two pretty women on those broad shoulders of yours earlier,’ Ragnar says, leaning into his son, nudging his elbow with his own.

Bjørn does not blush as you think he might. ‘Sansa and Thorunn are friends now. We are all friends, I think.’

Ragnar examines a nail. It is black. ‘Just friends?’ He slides his eyes over.

Bjorn goes to speak, and does not. He folds his arms. ‘Yes.’

‘It is good to see you in such fine company. Perhaps you should make the most of it.’

‘Father?’

Ragnar gives him a gently admonishing look, a look that says you know. ‘It is a cold night.’ He shrugs, purses his lips. ‘Two women would keep your bed warmer.’

A colour comes into his son’s cheek, stronger than any blood that has ever marked him. ‘No Father, it would not be right.’

‘Why not? You should try her.’ He keeps his voice very light, as if he is talking about sword-blades, or horses. ‘See which of them you prefer.’

Bjørn’s shoulders drop violently, like an axe-move your brother has taught him. ‘No, Father. It is wrong for you to speak of her – of either of them – this way. I am not like you.’ He stalks off.

He sniffs, chews on that black nail, smiles at Thorunn as she returns with a cup in each hand, her eyebrows two questions.

***

Despite her best efforts, Sansa felt drunk. She stepped outside, and one lungful of air was enough to rouse her. It had been a lovely night, full of food and ale and song. Even Floki, trying to scare her with his goat-mask, had only made her giggle. 

Athelstan was sitting against a wall on his own, a fur wrapped round his shoulders. Siggy had said –

It was difficult to know how he felt about her. They were always together, and had an understanding that no one else did. And she liked him, truly. It was also true that she treasured their time together, and how close they sat as they pored over his papers. And felt jealous when she saw him talking to other girls, full of grins that seemed both shy and perfectly assured.

Sansa sat next to him on a haybale, sloshing her ale-cup a little. ‘Are you well, Athelstan?’ 

He turned to her slowly, as if coming out of a dream. ‘Yes. I am very well. Thank you.’

‘Are you thinking of your family?’

‘A little. Not so much that, but –‘ Snowflakes were catching on his hair, like breadcrumbs. ‘We have – we had our own festival in Eng-land at this time. It is that I am thinking of.’

Sansa saw her own family gathered in the godswood, giving thanks to the old gods, her father, and stayed silent. Together, they watched the snow tumble. Perhaps it wasn’t snow, but songs, poems – tiny crystalline things falling from the sky onto their tongues, forming in new ways.

‘You should go back inside,’ he said, his voice folding in with the snow. ‘It’s cold.’

‘I am happy here,’ she said, and as she said it, she realised she meant not just in this moment, but here, in Kattegat, in this strange Northern land which felt so far from home. She had sung to them, Old Nan’s hollyberry song, and they had listened.

Athelstan was looking at her. She pretended not to notice, eyes up at the wool-spill of snow. He moved suddenly, bringing his fur around both of them. His arm around her shoulder. Hip against her hip.

‘Then you should at least be warm,’ he said, and her stomach became the warmest thing then, as warm as an oven full of rye bread.

Perhaps Siggy had been right. Perhaps they might be more than just friends. Her head swam a little. Blackberry ale fizzing around her head like poems, like snowflakes. Perhaps she could – 

And Sansa leant into his shoulder, turned her head and placed her lips on his. 

A kiss as light as a snowflake. His breath afterwards as light as another.

He pulled back, his bluegreen eyes a shade wider than normal. He seemed to want to say something but couldn’t decide on which word to use. ‘Do you want to?’ His voice was snow-flake light. Everything was a snowflake.

‘Yes.’ She nodded, very definitely, and took another sip of ale. She thought she did. She was sure she did.

‘I mean - of course – you are very pretty.’ He blinked, shook his head at himself. ‘More than pretty. And – more than just that. I just didn’t think – I – you are a princess,’ he said finally, and grinned, as if knowing how silly he sounded.

Sansa leaned into him a little more, into the warmth of his side. ‘I just want to learn.’ She was always good at learning.

And she kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse mythology school** :
> 
>  _ **Ratatosk**_ is a squirrel who runs up and down Yggdrasil, the tree of life, passing insults between the eagle at the top and the dragon at the bottom. Which is as good a job as any, I suppose…
> 
> ***
> 
> I used ‘The Holly Bears A Berry’ as the inspiration for Sansa’s winter-song – it is an English carol with pagan roots, and would have once been simply about evergreen trees, hunting and winter-time, before being adapted by Christians.
> 
>  [I did a little version of a verse and a chorus JUST FOR YOU. PRETEND I'M SANSA.](http://yourlisten.com/swimmingfox/hollyberry)


	14. Sansa and Athelstan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Back to business! Happy new year, y'all...  
> PS Bex I have been trying to get this up for ages on my long train ride home and just saw your message. H.N.Y.

Kissing Athelstan was lovely. His lips were as soft as the underside of a sheepskin, his hands delicate, as though she were clay being checked after being taken off the wheel.

Sansa had not spoken of it to anyone, not yet. A secret as shadowed as the days. They had carried on their lessons, only with as many kisses as there were words to learn. She had wondered where it would lead when she opened the library-shed door on that first dark morning after the Jul-night, but Athelstan was nothing but kindness and respect, as he had always been. 

‘What do you want to do today?’ he had said lightly, sitting cross-legged, the candle flickering low in the dark morning. She had sat down next to him, given him an impishly shy grin, and they had promptly continued where they had left off the night before, except this time her head was fizzing rather less. 

Joffrey had given her one or two chaste kisses before King’s Landing had turned into its long, red-smeared nightmare. Ser Meryn Trant or Ser Boros Blount had held her elbow tight and muttered about what they would like to do with her mouth as they escorted her about the castle. This was something quite different. She felt able to sink into it, as her feet did into soft, new snow in the morning. 

The snow lay so thickly now. Every morning, when the light finally came, she would stand in the middle of the village, looking up at the mountains as she had done when she had first been able to stand. Now they were the jagged teeth of giants, or great winter owls, occasionally opening and shutting an eye to gaze at her, before going back to their deep slumber.

‘You can –‘ Athelstan pulled back on the second afternoon, and looked at her in that way of his – calm, matter of fact, and a little shy all at once. ‘If you like, you can open your mouth.’

Sansa wondered if they had beetroots in this land and whether he would see two of them appear on her cheeks. She nodded and felt Athelstan’s tongue, and then her thoughts were of strawberries, not beetroots, and of his tongue being a new word she had just learnt and was trying out for the first time, and the second, and the third. 

***

The days seemed darker than ever, though you knew that not to be true. They soured your mood into old cream, old ale, old everything. You were bored of winter before it began. There were still many months before Ragnar could even think about raiding and exploring further. Floki’s boat-making had slowed to a halt. It was just too cold, he had said, hands curling on your shoulders, so bloody patient. Instead, it was a woman’s time – corn being ground into flour, blankets made at the loom, women standing in front of it, winding gossip around their fingers as much as wool. Sometimes you watched Sansa there, standing with Aslaug or Siggy – she seemed to like using her hands – and wondered what they were saying to each other.

She said little to you. Never impolite, only ever saying as much as she needed, though you knew she had more words. You wanted to ask her to sing again, but you never did. Some nights you lay awake, Siggy hooked over you, trying to remember the small, skirling tune she had sung at Jul. It was always just out of reach, like a gull flying far-off on a winter sky.

***

Sansa was eating berries out of her cupped palm in the longhouse one feast-eve, a hubbub of noisy eating and laughter around her. Athelstan was seated next to her, leaning away and with a cheekbone propped on his hand, watching her gobble them.

‘What are you looking at?’ she said, feigning disinterest.

He gave a quiet laugh through his nose and scratched the back of his head. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘Liar,’ she said in a half-whisper and shoved his knee a little with hers.

He returned a slow, assured grin and she thought about his hands on her waist, working up the pebbles of her spine.

A wooden plate full of ash-blackened fish and seaweed clattered onto the table, and Rollo soon after it. He had begun to eat his food before he was even seated. 

‘What is your word of the day, then?’ he said through a mouthful of food.

 _Kissing_ , she thought. _Tongue. Lazy_. ‘Decoration,’ she said, and gave an involuntary shiver. Athelstan had casually put his hand under the table and found her knee.

Rollo gave a sort of chew-snort. ‘There is not much use for that.’

‘There is. The mountains are decorated with snow. Trees are decorated with berries.’ And she popped the last few into her mouth at the same time as Athelstan squeezed her knee, making her cough and grin both at once.

Rollo was eyeing her, frowning. 

Sansa felt rather giddy. ‘I _decorate_ cloaks with stones. Floki _decorates_ boats with dragons. Athelstan –‘ his finger was drawing an ‘S’ in their lettering on the inside of her knee. ‘Athelstan, um, _decorated_ books with ink. And you –‘ 

He was chewing more slowly, staring right at her.

She couldn’t think of anything.

He leaned towards her. ‘Decorate men with blood.’ He picked a fish bone out of his teeth and looked at it. ‘Better you should learn the words for hunting, fishing, sword-making.’

‘I know them already,’ she said, feeling quite triumphant. She didn’t know why, but Rollo always made her feel like rubbing his nose in it a bit. 

Athelstan wrapped his foot round Sansa’s ankle. She burst into a giggle, which she tried to smother by pretending to pick bits of berry-skin from her teeth.

Rollo stopped chewing and looked at her, his eyes sliding to Athelstan and back again. He had gone very still, a pouch of food in one cheek. Sansa couldn’t help biting her lip at him. He rose abruptly, picking up his plate. ‘I will talk to someone else.’

‘You don’t have to go,’ said Sansa, by which time she was speaking to the back of his long, tangled brown hair as he stalked away. ‘You are a bad person,’ she said to Athelstan.

It was his turn to feign innocence, even though his hand had moved a little further up her leg. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

***

'How do you like my son?' Ragnar has summoned Sansa to him. 

She sits up straighter, as straight as his wife. There is something in her that reminds him of Aslaug, a knowing, and a sense that if she was cut open there would be tree-rings inside her. 

'I like him very much,’ she says, her hands cradling the hot, honeyed water he knows she likes. ‘He is very kind.'

'He _is_ kind. And very strong.’ He leans his elbows on his knees, runs fingers over his beard, which has only grown longer over these cold months. ‘Do you know we call him Bjørn Ironside?'

Her smile is almost proud. 'I have heard that, yes.'

'The seer told me he would do great things.’ He looks into the middle of the room. ‘He would make a good husband for someone.'

The seer had also told him, on his last visit, that the girl was to be part of his future. He said the family would grow. It was time to put his hand on the steer, use the sail-wind.

'I am sure of it,' she says. Careful with her words, eyes on him. 

'He would make you a good husband.'

A sharp in-breath. Her eyes make rock pools, crabs scuttling across them. 'I - Bjørn does not want to marry me.'

It is perhaps a fashion, in her country, to refuse, to cast eyes down as if fishing in a deep sea. 'Why not? You are beautiful, of noble birth.’ He leans towards her, keeps his voice gentle. ‘You have learnt our language more quickly than Floki can build a boat.'

She opens her palms up, reads them like Athelstan’s bark-pieces. 'He loves Thorunn.'

He shrugs, tips his head to the side. 'A man can love two women at once.' 

Sansa’s hands close. She sits a moment. He is a persuasive man. He is a king. A king may order, if he must. She has no one to speak for her. 

Her head comes up and now she is beginning to look a little more like Lagertha. Eyes being forged into metal. 'I cannot marry your son.'

'Give me one good reason.'

Her mouth is as straight as an axe-handle. She is thinking, hard. Her eyes grip yours. 'Because I am already married.'

***

Ragnar’s eyes quickly developed a frost, which melted, and promptly froze over again. 'Who is your husband?' Delivered as flippantly as always, and as always laced with liquid steel.

Well, she had said it now. 'Tyrion Lannister. He is the brother of the queen.'

Sansa had managed not to think about her husband very much of late. Occasionally she would remember his face, the shock on it plain enough to her as Joffrey fell to the ground clutching his throat, and felt a pang of guilt. Guilt at knowing he would have faced Cersei’s wrath. But everything had felt so far away, and she had very much wanted to forget. 

Now, though, she had to use it, a small, jewelled dagger against Ragnar’s firmness. Of course she couldn’t wed Bjørn – she wouldn’t wed Bjørn whether she was married or not. There had been a hard flint of anger in her stomach as Ragnar had made his suggestion, delivered as if he was handing her a rose to bury her nose in. How could she have found herself in this position again when she had begun to feel so free here? A pawn once more. Freefolk were supposed to be different.

‘A Lan-nis-ter.’ Ragnar stroked his beard. 'This man - would he trade with us?'

Always finding a way to make something work to his advantage. 'Yes.’ She thought of Tyrion chained up in a dark, rat-infested room. ‘If he could. He is clever.'

Ragnar sat back, clasped his hands over his stomach. His lip curled like one of his head-tattoos. 'And what is he like, this husband of yours? Is he a great warrior?'

She remembered Tyrion’s set jaw at the Battle of Blackwater as he had led men to the castle walls, carrying his helm, his squire behind him. 'He is good in battle. But he cannot fight well.’

‘He is weak?’

‘No. No, he - he is a -' Oh Gods, what was the word? 

Ragnar frowned at her.

She couldn’t explain, not without dishonouring Tyrion.

He held a finger up. ‘I will fetch Athelstan.’

Seven hells. She flushed with panic. ‘No, you don’t need –‘

He was already leaving the room.

Oh Gods. _Gods_. Athelstan.


	15. Sansa And Her Husband (Part One)

Your head felt like a hay bale at the end of a dry, hot summer. Too much ale, not enough goat. Enough ale last night to fill the sea in the bay and hard, furious sex afterwards. Siggy was being very accommodating these days. Not so much when you were vomiting, though.

You staggered out of your doorway, stumbled down the path. Bread. Where was Siggy?

Your brother came past, looking like he had just arrived on an English beach. ‘Have you seen Athelstan?’

Always with the priest. As if he could tell him more than the seer, than the gods themselves. And she was always with him. Something was up. They must be having sex. She was probably having sex with him right now.

‘No,’ you said. Your brother had a strange look in his eyes, fires on a far hill. ‘What is it?’

‘The princess.’ He moved past you. ‘She has a husband.’

The words stayed with you though he did not. Husband. You felt like throwing up again. If she had married Athelstan in secret you were going to take him to England yourself and have him crucified properly.

***

Sansa had never felt so mortified in her whole life. Not like this. Athelstan had eventually been found and Ragnar had practically dragged him in by his sleeve. His reassuring smile had faded rather quickly.

‘Find out who Sansa’s husband is,’ Ragnar had said, with an impatient flick of his fingers, pouring himself a cup of ale.

Athelstan stood in front of Sansa, his mouth falling open slightly. To anyone else, he might have looked like he hadn’t quite heard. But she knew his expressions – she had been watching them closely, to help her understand their words, for many cycles of the moon now. He was startled, confused – and hurt. She could hardly look at him.

‘Athelstan.’ Ragnar’s voice was a freshly-sharpened blade. 

‘Yes. Sorry.’ He drew a chair next to Sansa’s. 

All she wanted to do was pull him into their sanctuary, explain properly. But she had to do it _here_ , in front of Ragnar. Perhaps Ragnarok might come soon and put her out of her misery. 

Athelstan was gazing at her, a look that both carried a boatful of questions and yet at the same time none at all, a still sea. ‘Um. Who is your husband?’

‘I know his name,’ said Ragnar, slouched sideways on a chair, not looking at either of them. ‘She needs a word.’

Her stomach was curling up, like parchment that had been placed on a fire. She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that when she opened them again she would be very far away from here.

She opened them. Athelstan’s eyes. Cornflower-blue. Ivy-green. ‘He – he is small,’ she said. 

He frowned a little, his task of translation taking root. ‘He is a child?’

A sudden image of being married to adorable, kind Tommen and leading him around the gardens by the hand. ‘No. He is a small – a small man.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I do not know the word.’

His voice was more gentle than it had any right to be. ‘You mean – very small? Smaller than is usual?’

She nodded.

‘I think you mean a - a _dvergr_.’ She was sure that he understood. _Dvergr_. A dwarf.

Ragnar slung his legs back round to the front, his attention suddenly caught. ‘You are married to a dwarf?’ He stood up, put his hand to his stomach.

She could do nothing but nod and wish for it all to be over. Athelstan’s eyes had finally fallen from her face and seemed to be sweeping the floor for something lost.

Ragnar sat again, perched right on the edge of his chair. ‘He lives among you? Not in a ______?’

What on earth could that mean? _Prison cell? Dungeon_? Surely that was where he was now. Unless he had outwitted them and made an escape, and perhaps was making a new life in his own faraway land. 

Athelstan stepped in, using his hands. ‘A house cut out of the rock. Under the ground.’

‘Not under the ground. But yes. His family is from Casterly Rock. A castle.’

There was a quiet discussion between them. Ragnar seemed to be incredulous and incredibly entertained, wriggling about in his seat like one of his sons. ‘Wait –‘ he turned back to her. ‘The queen is a dwarf?’

Sansa felt the need to defend him. She had hated Joffrey removing Tyrion’s step at the wedding but pride had stopped her from bending down to him straightaway. If she had been there now, she would have put the step back and helped him stand on it. ‘He was the brother of two’ – ordinary was not the word to describe Jaime and Cersei – ‘two people as tall as us.’

Ragnar’s eyebrows rose and fell like oars. ‘Why have you not spoken of this before?’

‘I do not think of it very often.’ Oh Gods, that sounded worse than ever. She spoke directly to Athelstan. ‘I did not want to marry him. I was told to.’

His face was a smooth stone and yet full of words.

‘It is not such a bad thing, to be married to a dwarf.’ Ragnar spoke through a smirk. ‘They are great craftsmen. Some hold up the sky – the North, the South -’ he pointed. ‘East and West.’ A smile, the sort of smile she had seen on almost every person at their wedding, save the countenance of slate worn by Twyin. ‘Some are poets and many make schemes that men could not think of.’

She thought of Tyrion’s quick wit, his cunning at the battle of Blackwater. The wildfire that so terrified the Hound. ‘Yes. I suppose that is true of him.’ 

Ragnar was drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. 

‘May I go now?’ She couldn’t bear it any more. Athelstan’s eyes and Ragnar’s amusement.

‘Not yet,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘Tell me of this Cast-er-ly Rock.’

***

‘A dwarf? What do you mean, a dwarf?’

You found your brother talking with Floki. It was not what you thought. It was worse than you thought. At least Athelstan you could have laid your hands on.

‘The little Blóðughadda becomes more and more part of our world, Rollo,’ said Floki. ‘She is married to one from Niðavellir. Or Svartálfaheimr.’

A dwarf. A _dwarf_. They were uglier than pigs. You spat. ‘How?’

‘But this is not quite so,’ said Ragnar. ‘I do not think he is a dark elf or a light elf. He seems a little like Alvis and his human bride. Or Fáfnir - the son of a great ruler. Except he has a human brother and sister.’

All you could think of is Freyja lying with those ugly dwarves for the necklace. All four of them. At once. 

‘So dwarves and giants walk amongst them in her land,’ said Floki, trailing his fingers along the table, drawing boat-wakes. ‘This is a very curious place you plan to raid, Ragnar. It sounds like several of our realms put together.’

Ragnar was hardly listening. ‘He will be cunning, this one. When we reach his land, we will have to tread with our snowshoes on to outwit him.’

‘Are we sure this land will be worth raiding, Ragnar?’ said Floki.

‘Yes,’ he said, rolling his eyes. Never wanting to hear _no_ , never wanting to hear doubt.

‘How can you be so sure, brother?’ you said. Dwarves married to beaut- to princesses. You agreed with Floki. This sounded a dangerous, twisted place. You were a warrior, but you were not sure that you could fight giants. And no human had ever reached Niðavellir if that was even what it was. No boat would ever sail there.

‘Because she said that her husband’s family was very rich,’ said Ragnar, his words sliding like a finely-made sled along smooth snow. ‘They have gold. Lots of gold.’

***

Rollo was in the longhouse, with one of his smaller nephews on his knee and a little wooden sword between his teeth. He looked up when Sansa came closer and took the sword out of his mouth. 

‘You are married.’ He said it casually as she passed him. 

She stopped. So everyone knew now. She had told Ragnar too much. Athelstan being there had made her babble. ‘Yes.’ 

‘To a dwarf.’ His lip curled and she saw his eyes, a mixture of bafflement and something else – pride, or smugness. He hoisted Hvitserk into the air and onto the floor, giving him his sword and patting him soundly on the bottom to send him on his way.

They both watched as the boy wandered towards the family chambers, waving his sword in front of him.

‘How tall?’ said Rollo.

‘What?’

He stood up, right in front of her. ‘How tall is he?’ He leant down towards her ear. Ale faintly on his breath, and baked ryebread. ‘Your _husband_.’ The last word pushed through his teeth, though there was still a trace of something lighter there too.

Sansa looked at the wall and put her hand to her ribcage.

‘Shorter than the _priest_?’ Rollo folded his arms. ‘How can you be married to him?’

She saw it all again. The gold drapes in the high sept. Joffrey’s high, wicked grin. Cersei’s look of hatred corseted in motherly benevolence. ‘It was not my choice.’ Not because he was a dwarf, she wanted to say. Because he was a _Lannister_. Joffrey’s uncle. Because she would never be free. 

He didn’t look like he believed her. He sat back down, rubbed his beard with one palm. ‘If I had known you were married to a dwarf, I would never have asked you. What I asked you. Dwarfs are made from maggots.’

How could he still be bringing that up? There was no shame in this man at all. ‘Do not speak of him like that.’ Tyrion would have outwitted him in a heartbeat.

His eyebrows lifted. ‘You love a dwarf?’

‘No.’

‘But you had sex with a dwarf?’ His upper lip came away from his teeth like a wave shrinking from the beach. 

‘ _No_.’ She had answered before she had had time to think.

‘No?’

Sansa felt her shoulders drop far away. Something was stuck in her throat. ‘No.’

He looked puzzled. ‘But you are married to him.’

 _Unconsummated_. This word she did not know. It probably didn’t exist in their tongue seeing as everyone seemed to lie together, all the time, married or otherwise. Tyrion had showed her a great deal of respect. More than he had needed to. He was a good man. She knew that, now, too late. 

‘I did not –‘ She’d have to say it. There was no other way. ‘Have sex. With him.’ 

Rollo was leaning right back on his chair, the two front legs tipped in the air. 

Sansa folded her arms and glared at him. 

Suddenly the legs of the chair came down and he leant on his knees, gazing at her. ‘Wait. You have not had sex. At _all_.’ His mouth dropped open, half a grin.

How could they be so unapologetic about it? At least in Westeros people spoke of _maidens_ and _flowerings_. ‘I will not speak of that,’ she said. I would prefer not to speak of it to _you_ , she thought.

He carried on smiling his puzzled, proud smile. ‘What age are you?’

‘Ten and eight.’ She showed him her fingers.

‘Ten and eight and a ____.‘ A word she didn’t understand, but one she could guess well enough. _A virgin. A maid_. He shook his head, looking at her in a sort of impatient wonder. Then he leant further forward, his face tilted up to hers. ‘You should try it. With someone who knows what they are doing.’

She could feel the heat sweep up her neck. ‘No. Thank you.’

His voice was dropping, easy, dark. ‘It is nice. Women like it here. Maybe they like it better than in West-er-os. Free women, anyway. There are no dwarves. No small men.’ He sat back and his eyes dropped to his lap before coming back up to hers, raising his eyebrows. 

Oh Gods. Yes, she understood. She walked very quickly past him.

‘You don’t have to go,’ she heard him say to the back of her head, and knew that he was grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School - Dwarf special edition** :
> 
> Dwarfs in Norse mythology live in _**Niðavellir**_ , one of the nine realms. There are also realms for the light elves and the dark elves. Dwarfs play many minor roles in the mythology: they hold up the four corners of the entire world; they are often seen as craftsmen (or crafty), magicians; they live in caves and covet gold.
> 
>  _ **Svartálfaheimr**_ is the realm of the dark elves.
> 
> In Norse mythology, _**Alvis**_ was a dwarf who hoped to marry a human girl Thrud – Thor’s daughter, but was thwarted by the sun rising on him (a bit like vampires) on the day of his wedding.
> 
>  _ **Fáfnir**_ was a son of the dwarf king Hreidmar. He became a dragon and was slain by Sigurd, Asluag’s father.
> 
>  _ **Freyja**_ desperately wanted a necklace called _Brísingamen_ that the four dwarves who owned it would not sell. They instead suggested that she spend one night having sex with each of them and then she could have it. Which she did.
> 
>  _ **Ragnarok**_ is the end of the world in Norse mythology, when Odin and the gods fight the giants – everyone knows this will eventually happen; that it is fated.


	16. Sansa And Her Husband (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Ana and Bloomuen.

Sansa found Athelstan on his own in the longhouse, looking very deeply into a cup of ale. 

She sat next to him. ‘Hello.’

He looked at her. A gentle, impassive smile. He hated her. She was an adulteress. A lying adulteress.

‘I’m – I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ she said to the table. 

He shook his head. ‘It is not – you may choose what you tell me. I just – I haven’t kissed anyone with a husband before. I – didn’t know.’ Another unreadable smile.

‘Everything feels so different here. So far away. I never thought of it. Not when I was –‘ She couldn’t avoid a small blush. ‘With you. I just –‘

‘Forgot?’

Oh Gods. ‘I wanted to forget,’ she said very quietly. 

Their hands remained on the table, a little way apart. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said lightly, but the air remained ale-cloudy.

Wasn’t it different here? Didn’t people lie with whom they chose? Sansa wasn’t even doing that – it was just - _just kissing_ , she dared to think. But Athelstan wasn’t only a Northman – he had a different set of beliefs in his past. And so did she. 

She was beginning to feel rather desperate. ‘I don’t want to be married to him. I don’t know if he is even alive.’

Athelstan’s smile was rueful. He wound his fingers round his cup and looked at her simply. ‘But you don’t know that he is dead.’

***

‘In the summer, we will raid.’

Ragnar was leaning on his elbows, speaking low to you, Floki and Torstein. You were grateful at least that you are part of this conversation, though you still sometimes imagined that you were seated on that carved wooden chair looking down on him, not the other way round.

‘Of course we will raid,’ you said. ‘But when and where are what we must plan.’

He ignored your attempts at brotherly consolidarity. ‘I have decided that first we will go to England, perhaps further north this time, early in the spring. As soon as the weather is in our favour.’ He pushed at the skin of his cheek with a palm. ‘We must find gold to pay the men to help build Floki’s boats. To pay the earls for their willing.’

Floki bent his head low in his direction.

‘And I would like to discover the northern edge of this kingdom. When the boats are built, by midsummer or after, we will head west, in great number, over the top of this land. To West-er-os.’

‘It is a great risk,’ said Floki, in his storytelling voice.

‘Everything is a risk, Floki. Putting you in charge of my boat-building is a risk. But I have faith in the gods. In what the seer says. The princess is our future. Her land is to be our new land. I feel it. And now we know she is married to this dwarf, we can use her.’

Your ears twitched. ‘What do you mean, use her?’

‘Her husband has much gold, just like other dwarves. His high house is built on gold. Gold in the stone. Think of it, brother. Stone pissing gold.’

A dwarf who was called something like an earl. Even a dwarf had more power than you. Though not enough power to get between that girl’s legs. She had bettered Frejya, at least. ‘What of it?’

Ragnar widened his eyes at you, as if not believing that you could not be interested in gold. ‘This dwarf-husband will surely want his beautiful human wife back. When we show him that we have her, we may bargain for her.’

‘No.’ The word was out of your mouth faster than a wild horse let loose.

‘No?’ Your brother sent back at you, a mountain-echo, quieter, absorbing yours.

The others were looking at you. ‘What if she does not want to go?’ you said.

‘ _What if she does not want to go_ ,’ he said right back, like you were both five, each word hitting the other, little slaps. ‘I decide.’ He leant backwards on an elbow. ‘We will have treated her as our guest for almost a year by then. We have shown her our hospitality. It will be time.’

***

Ragnar has brought Sansa to them and she stands with folded hands, like a slave.

‘Princess. It has been decided. We will return you to your land in the summer.’ 

‘If we can find it,’ Floki says under his breath.

She blinks twice and her eyes fling like wayward arrows between them all. ‘To – my land?’

‘We will have the boats. You will join us. We will take you back to your husband. Back to Kingslanding.’

Then it is as if she has eaten valerian root, or poppy. Her eyes roll like a reedboat in a storm and her mouth falls open. ‘I -' She drops to her knees. ‘Please don’t. Please don’t take me back there.’

‘But it is your home. You must want to go back to it.’

‘Not – not to there. Please. They married me to Lord Tyrion - I was meant to -' words start falling out of her mouth in her own language at the same time as water from her eyes.

‘Princess,’ he says, taking her chin in his hand. ‘I cannot understand your words. Speak mine.’

She is gulping as if she has not drunk for many days. Her words in your tongue come slowly. ‘ _Please_. I was a prisoner there. They killed my family. They killed everyone. My husb- Lord Tyrion may be dead. Or in – captured. They made me marry him. If I go back, they will kill me.’ Her eyes are seawater. 

‘Brother,’ Rollo says. ‘Look at her. She does not want to go back. You will sell her to her murderers? This is not our way.’

She looks at Rollo, puts her sleeve to her nose. The rulers of this land sound brutal, to have placed their own brother under guard, to have perhaps killed him, though it is not exactly something Ragnar is unfamiliar with. 

‘We should be looking for land there, should we not?’ Rollo says. ‘This is what you wanted to do in England. She has spoken of farms there, of good soil. Why go there for a little gold when we could have much more?’

Sansa is looking at Ragnar, shivering. He remembers her song, that dark night at Aslaug’s bedside. The next morning the blood had begun to rise to his wife’s cheeks again.

‘I do not have a home there anymore,’ she says to him in a whisper.

***

Sansa spent the afternoon sitting in Bjørn’s little room, wrapped in a fur, staring at the fire. It had not felt right to seek out Athelstan.

‘Sansa? What is wrong?’ Thorunn sat down next to her, peering into her face, very close.

She couldn’t really answer. All these months spent here, becoming part of this world, or _thinking_ she was, and Ragnar was no better than anyone else. Wanting to marry her to his son – she hadn’t spoken of it to Bjørn, but she was sure that he knew of it - and when Ragnar found out that she was already married, simply handing her over, goods to be traded. It was only Rollo’s words that seemed to give his brother pause. _Rollo_ , whom she could never fathom, with his moods as fast-changing as the clouds at the tops of the mountains. Rollo, who seemed to sometimes want to be friends, and then ruined it all by telling her she should have sex with him. Rollo, and his smell of salt and baked bread and sweat.

Bjørn had been sitting in a corner, pretending to be busy sharpening his sword, throwing Sansa worried glances all the while.

Thorunn touched her face. ‘Your eyes are red. You have been crying.’ She looked at Bjørn. ‘Is it King Ragnar?’

A nod. She felt so exhausted. She could see Cersei’s gilded face, bargaining with Ragnar, whilst Tywin gathered enough forces behind a gate to overcome them in seconds. Another forced marriage, if Tyrion was dead. Or a view of an executioner’s boots. 

Thorunn sat behind Sansa, both of her long legs either side of her, and gathered her hair up, letting it spill through her fingers. She craned round. ‘I will go and find Athelstan so he can kiss you,’ she said, raising her eyebrows. 

Sansa looked at her, blushing. ‘What do you mean?’

Thorunn put her forefinger on her eyebrow, her thumb underneath her eye, and pulled the skin apart. ‘I have eyes. I _know_.’ She looked at Bjørn and they both grinned.

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ said Sansa. She rather suspected anyway that Athelstan wouldn’t be so interested in kissing her anymore. 

Thorunn put her hand over her mouth and Bjørn brought his sword up so that the blade covered his lips. It was enough to make her smile, just.

A noise behind them. Ragnar was there.

‘Hello, Father,’ said Bjørn, standing. 

‘Hello,’ he said, his eyes dragonfly wings flitting through the half-dark room. ‘I would like to speak with Sansa.’ Thorunn was standing now, too, as good as a kingsguard. ‘Alone.’

No sound but the hiss of the low fire. 

‘It’s alright,’ said Sansa to them both. ‘You may go.’

Thorunn dipped her head as she passed Ragnar, before turning on her heel and glaring at the back of his head. Bjørn followed.

Ragnar squatted down next to the fire, his hands clasped, as if locked in a battle of wills with it. He breathed out heavily through his nose. ‘Why would the queen kill you?’

He was not here to make demands straight away, then. ‘Because she thinks I killed her son. The king.’ 

He turned his head round to her. ‘Did you?’

‘No.’ He watched her eyes for the lie, but she knew he could not find it. ‘And because I am a danger to her.’

‘Why?’ 

Sansa had been a mess in the longhouse - the thought of being delivered into Cersei’s waiting claws had crumpled her. But she had had time to compose herself, here in his son’s room, the son who she was sure had no more intention of marrying her than she did. She had to convince him that she was worth more to him than a prize to be handed over.

‘Because I am the last of my family,’ she said. ‘My family ruled the north. Like you rule your land.’

His eyes sparked, just a little. ‘You have told me this. But you have no power now. Your home has been taken.’

‘Not on my own,’ she said. ‘But your people would have more power with the last Stark of Winterfell than without her. I know how the land lies. I know the Houses. Which would be loyal.’ She did not, exactly, but she had to tell herself this.

His fingers smoothed over the tip of his beard. The fire made shadows of his face. ‘It is said that you and your husband –‘ the side of his mouth twisted like a snake coming from a basket. ‘Did not lie together?’

Oh Gods. Why would Rollo tell him that? Sansa didn’t answer.

‘Why did he not lie with you?’ His eyes flickered over her, tiny flames.

Asked so bluntly. Sansa had a flash of memory, of being back at Winterfell. Cersei. _And have you flowered, little dove_? ‘He knew I did not want to.’

He did not blink. ‘In this land, _________ may happen easily.’ A small sigh escapes him. ‘Too easily, for some. A man who hits a woman may be ________. A woman who lies with a man who is not her husband may be _________. And if a man has not fulfilled his –‘ he tilted his head - ‘duty to his wife, he may be _________.’

 _Skilnaðr_. ‘I -' She said the word, haltingly, as a question.

Ragnar sighed, impatient, and showed her two fists, joined at the thumbs. ‘Man. Woman.’ He brought his fists apart. ‘Split. Parted.’ _Divorced? Annulled_? He turned his head to her, his elbows still on his knees. ‘The only people in our land who can grant a divorce are earls. Or kings.’

Sansa swallowed.

‘You did not want to marry this dwarf? And he never lay with you?’ 

She shook her head. 

He fluttered his fingers, as if letting sand fall between them. ‘Then I divorce you.’ His voice was as light as a southron breeze. ‘The gods divorce you.’ 

***

Very well. It is a strange one, to let the wishes of a young girl lead him down new paths. Ragnar watches his small sons play at swords, tiny taps on the wood.

His brother, of course, only wants her to stay so that he can have sex with her. It is as plain as the northern winter sky. But perhaps he is right, to think of land, of trade, and not simply of gold. She is strong in some ways, this girl, even if she has not the shieldmaiden strength of Lagertha. But not many women do. Perhaps she will help them further, yet.

And the seer had said she would be part of his family. If he sold her to these Lann-is-ter rulers, this could not happen. As usual, the seer saw the gods’ star-written words where he did not.

They are young, his strong, proud son and this Northern princess. There is time for love to flower. 

Ragnar rises, goes to his sons, lets one of them stab him in the stomach. He falls, a silently astonished, exaggerated death, and they roll on top of him, and he enjoys the warm hay smells of his own family, his family that will one day grow.

***

Sansa lay awake, a cold pillar of moonlight on the wall by her head. It didn’t mean anything, for Ragnar to divorce her. It would not mean anything if she was standing on Weterosi soil. But even there, she was sure that an unconsummated marriage could be annulled. She had heard it spoken of – a faint memory of a scandal involving a daughter of House Manderly.

Ragnar had probably only done it so that she would be free to marry Bjørn. Yet he had not mentioned it again. She would have to fight that battle when it next came, and hope that Bjørn would do the same. 

She had a feeling like feathers on her back, the fronds lifting up in a gentle breeze. Free. 

Sansa put her hand out, ran her fingers over the pale light as if playing a harp string. She wondered if Tyrion was looking at a similar band of light on a wall somewhere.

‘I divorce you, Tyrion,’ she whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gasp! No Norse schools for you today..


	17. Sansa and the Feast of Vali

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For JillyP.

Siggy woke you up. Hot milk in your hand. ‘Good morning.’ She knelt next to you on the bed, a hand on your cheek. ‘Happy Valisblot.’

Another feast-day. Normally you would be happy. More food than usual was never a bad thing.

‘Rollo.’

A heavy sigh. ‘Yes.’

She tried to hide her hurt behind jewelled eyes. ‘Ragnar and Aslaug renew their vows today.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Embla and Gunnar will marry.’

‘Yes.’

She had been dropping hints like stones into your soup. Weddings. Couples. It seemed that she had decided you were better now. Worth something again. You still weren’t sure what. It made you want to shrug her off like a fur at the end of winter. She had no power. No lands. No family to make an alliance with.

Siggy put a hand on your chest, where your heart was stamping, bored. You put your hand on her wrist, took it away. She sat up straighter, her hands in her lap. ‘Have you been praying to Lofn again?’ she said, her voice bitter as cloves.

‘Leave me in peace, woman,’ you said, and turned back over. You would sleep until feast-time.

***

‘Athelstan is looking at you.’ Thorunn was sitting next to Sansa, braiding her hair tightly against her scalp, pulling faces if Sansa winced.

The Feast of Vali, a son of Odin who killed Hothar, the dark one. She was beginning to remember the gods’ names as well as the names of everyone in the village. Gods and giants and – dwarfs – chasing each other across the sky, striking bargains that were broken, playing tricks. Their stories had none of the romance of her old songs and tales – they were brutal, ugly, full of death – but they seemed right in this place. They seemed true.

Though Thorunn had said that the summer and autumntime were when most men and women wed, today one couple had been married by an ox-shouldered woman with a voice like a deep trumpet. It sounded nothing like the weddings in the Red Keep – her own included – with simple exchanges of swords and rings. The pair and their guests had come to the feast speckled with the blood of the boar they had all since eaten a little of. 

‘He is still looking.’

Sansa glanced over. Athelstan was talking to his friend Orvar, but his eyes kept floating over to her, thoughtful, teasing.

It had taken some days for Athelstan to come round to the idea of Sansa being married. There was a sense of careful civility to their lessons until Sansa dared to put her hand on top of his knuckles and to run her forefinger over his scars there. She had told him about her ‘divorce’, and, looking at the ground, why Ragnar had said it was possible. Though she didn’t think he believed wholeheartedly in it anymore than she did, it seemed to be enough. Since then they had been tentatively intimate again.

‘He wants sex with you.’ 

A feeling like butter melting in her stomach. ‘Thorunn – don’t.’

Thorunn elbowed her in the back. ‘What?’ She put her mouth next to Sansa’s ear, but still spoke loudly enough for everyone around them to hear. ‘ _He wants sex with you_.’

New kisses had turned into hands exploring each other and bark-pieces knocked to the floor, but it had never gone further, as much as she had begun to want it to. He would always wait for her, she knew. She did trust him. He was so gentle.

The newly-married couple drank each other’s cups of honeymead, arms locked together. They looked like they knew each other very intimately already. It was so different here.

Athelstan was watching her again. Greenblue butterflies, wondering if it was spring. Thorunn yanked Sansa’s head back as she tied her final plait, and Sansa turned her head to show him the side. He gave a quick, honest smile. Perhaps a blush. 

‘ _And you want sex with him_.’ Thorunn was clutching Sansa tight around the stomach.

Sansa dug her in the ribs.

***

It was Aslaug’s idea to renew vows, but Ragnar is happy to go along with it. It has been five years since they first met – that day she appeared with her shieldmaidens, clad in her netted woollen dress, munching on an apple. A goddess to rival all goddesses. The day he listened to his loins first and his head second.

He does not regret it. He regrets Lagertha leaving as she did, and he regrets the four years in which his son changed from a sapling to a great tree, but he does not regret this woman and the four sons she has given him, the four sons he will send out into the world like ravens. He looks round at Siggy, who holds Ivar under his bottom and smiles at him as she jigs him down and up, pretending he is riding on a horse, perhaps. Well, three of his sons, at least.

They place their hands together and Odur, the oldest man in the village, stands alongside the wedding-woman. He places the green-bordered cloth around both of their hands and beams at them.

Alsaug looks at him, calm as the summer ocean, full of its knowledge and power, and he wonders what she sees in their future.

***

Sansa and Athelstan sat together now, watching Ragnar dip his head, the way he only ever did to his wife or to Lagertha. He seemed to be holding his breath, as if he was treading on a bridge over a teetering precipice. 

With her willow-straight back, Aslaug looked down on her husband. She nodded and her grave face became a bright moon, her eyes full of stars.

The room broke into clapping and cheering. Ragnar turned to them, grinning, and Sansa imagined the boy he would have once been, when his skin might have been nut-smooth and his head unmarked. He plucked up Alsaug’s hand and brought it his lips. He was a volatile, restless man, but he clearly loved his wife.

The longroom became stuffy with firesmoke and sweat and a smell like curdled milk. Sansa nestled shyly into Athelstan’s side. Some of the villagers had dressed up in the furs of animals and very little else, breasts and penises of alarming mobility as they danced around the fire, and she tried to hide her blushes and laughter by hiding her face in a horncup of mead. Floki wandered around with his little daughter, who had her own tiny mask with twig-antlers, telling everyone she would be a deer when she grew up. Torstein tried to deliver a long poem about the dangers of drunkenness but couldn’t remember the end of it through being rather too drunk. 

Eventually, people drifted away from this corner of the longhouse, beginning to make their way to their own houses. Ragnar and Aslaug had long since retired to their chambers. Rollo had stumbled past Sansa and said something about goddesses and ploughs and fighting, but she couldn’t understand him. Then he had looked at her as if she was only air and pushed past her.

The room was empty now. Sansa lay her head on Athelstan’s shoulder, curled her hand round his upper arm and wondered what to say. How to say – what she wanted. 

He ran a thumb over her knuckles and spoke in her ear. ‘I think Thorunn is trying to tell you something.’

She raised her eyes to the door, where Thorunn had re-appeared, nodding at her very definitely and flashing her eyes between them both. Seven hells, she was incorrigible.

Athelstan gave a quiet laugh through his nose. Gods. He understood. Didn’t he? Maybe Thorunn had said exactly the same thing to him, too. Sansa had initially wondered whether Athelstan had been experienced at all at – bedding a woman. He had told her that monks devoted their lives to their god. But he had seemed very sure of kissing her. Touching her.

Well, he had never minded her asking about these people’s bedding habits before. Or about anything. The mead had given her confidence – that and Thorunn rolling her eyes at them both again as she finally made her way out of the longhouse.

She bit her lip before speaking almost under her breath. ‘Have you - had sex, Athelstan?’ and immediately wished she hadn’t.

But it didn’t shock him in the slightest. ‘Yes.’ He smiled, sheepishly, before bending further down to her. ‘When I was a monk, the idea of lying with a girl was something very odd to me. It seemed – not clean. But –‘ he thumbed the hem of his shirt. ‘Yes. Now I have.’

‘With –‘ _Gods_. ‘Many women?’

Another little tiny breath-laugh. He wound a finger around the end of one of her plaits. ‘Some. A few. My first was very strange. I was given mushrooms – my mind wasn’t my own. I was going to be sacrificed to the gods the next day. It was Siggy’s daughter. She is dead now. She died of a plague that killed many here. It killed Ragnar’s daughter. It almost killed me.’

Mushrooms. Sacrifice. Plague. It didn’t give her much confidence.

He had two plaits in his fingers now. ‘Would you -' He shook his head, as if to himself, and carried on examining her hair as if it were newly-discovered lettering.

‘Would I – what?’ she said, gently.

He took a breath in and tilted his head down to her, speaking as softly as night snowfall. ‘Would you like me to show you?’

Eyes that were sometimes green and sometimes blue, raisin-coloured hair, gentle hands, a soft, quick wit. Shared words, shared stories. Someone she trusted utterly. 

She nodded.

***

You got drunk. You got Floki to sprinkle some mushrooms on your food. You saw stars. You saw mushrooms. 

You saw the _raf refr_ with her hair made like a shieldmaiden’s, rows like a furrowed field. The virgin princess. Maybe she hoped to be one of the goddess Gefjon’s attendants. 

You found her. Told her that her hair was a field you wanted to lie down in. Her fresh field-hair. You told her that a warrior-maiden who could not fight could only lie down in fresh fields of hair and it was the truest thing you had ever said.

You lay down outside in the dark, watching Vali’s light-arrows streak across the sky.

There.

And _there_.

***

Sansa had thought she would never see jewels again. But this morning, they were everywhere. Wave-tips strung with tiny pearl-diamonds, the sun tumbling jade and agate and topaz into the water. The fields behind the village lined in gold. The mountains drawn over heavily with the black chalk her hands were always covered in. Inlaid with black jet. 

She had had sex. With Athelstan. He had taken her hand and led her to his own bed, which was further down the longhouse, tucked away behind wooden panels. She felt the little bird in her throat flutter madly as he helped her out of her clothes and removed his, watching her carefully the whole time, the corner of his mouth teased upwards just a little. His smiles gave her strength. Always so calm, so confident. Like a boy who knew where sugared lemon candies were secreted. Maybe he did know. Maybe one day he would show her.

‘You are very beautiful,’ he had whispered as he had moved on top of her, and the warmth of his skin on hers was enough to make her grin and gasp. It had hurt, a little, but she had concentrated on his hands on her ribcage as he had slid into her, his hands on her cheek, underneath her back. 

And afterwards, he had layered breaths in her ear like winter leaves falling and they had held other tightly for a while before she had wriggled out, putting her dress back on, her thighs sticky with blood, her stomach sticky with his seed. Tiptoeing quietly back to her own bed, she had huddled under the furs, curled up, stinging. And glowing.

‘Hello, shieldmaiden without the shield.’ Rollo was leaning against a chicken fence. He had muddy hills around his eyes. The daylight seemed a shock to him.

‘I am not,’ she said, before she could help it. Apart from last night’s strange mumblings, he hadn’t really talked to her since the night he had asked her about Tyrion. 

Now he looked at her, his eyebrows pulling together. 

Fine. She walked over to him, stood very tall, and folded her arms. ‘I am not a maiden. _Now_.’

His face was the mountain she had first thought it was, the shaded side, but this time the sun glided over it as he realised what she meant. Then clouds again.

He swallowed, and shrugged. ‘Fine. What do I care?’ But he stayed very still, and it was her who held her chin high and gave him the iciest smile she could, before sauntering past him to look for more jewels in the waves.

***

‘You little horsearse,’ you said. Your head felt like a barnyard.

Athelstan looked up, chewing a bit of appleskin, his face as good as bloody Balder’s. ‘What?’

You stood over him, blocking out the sun. ‘You know what.’ He shook his head, eyes wide open, jaw still working. ‘She is not for you, priest.’

He stopped chewing. Swallowed. ‘I don’t know what you mean.‘

Your head was a barnyard full of animals. It was a little hard to stand up. You held onto a post. ‘Don’t bother. _I know_.’

‘It’s –‘ He frowned. Sat straight. Looked calm again. ‘Who is she for?’ 

You didn’t answer. Your head was a barnyard full of animals and all their stink. Dead animals.

He gave you a look like he had read all the books in England. ‘She is not _for_ anyone. Not for anyone to own. She can – lie with whomever she chooses. Isn’t that our way?’

 _Our_ way. As if he had never been a monk. A _Christian_. You imagined punching him so that your knuckles came back covered in blood and apple pulp.

Siggy did not understand why you were so angry that night. Why you stormed around the room like a wild horse. Kicking things. You were not sure why, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> **Norse Mythology School**  
>   
> 
>  _ **The Feast of Vali**_ or _**Valisblot**_ takes place in February. Vali, one of Odin’s sons, symbolises new light after darkness by slaying the blind Hother. He is often depicted as a bowman firing shafts of light, which I thought I’d tie in with Rollo’s faintly hallucinatory shooting stars.
> 
> Vali was a God of love and it is thus linked to Valentine’s Day, with Vali’s arrows possibly becoming the motif for Valentine’s Day. Often people got married or renewed their vows on this day. It also a festival of the family, a time to remember both close family but those who are kindred by the bonds of friendship.
> 
> And of course, being in February, it became/was linked to St Valentine’s Day.
> 
>  _ **Honeyed mead**_ was drunk by the newly-wed couple at their feast. They would continue to drink mead together formally for a month – a full cycle of the moon. Hence: _**honeymoon**_. CUTE, HUH?!
> 
> I imagined Torstein using the following poem, supposed to be the words of Odin, for his drunken poem:
> 
>  _Ölr ek varþ, / varþ ofrölvi_  
>  at ens fróþa Fjalars;  
> þvi's ölþr bazt, / at aptr of heimtir  
> hverr sitt geþ gumi.
> 
> Drunk was I then, / I was over-drunk,  
> in the fold of wise Fjalar;  
> But best is an ale feast / when a man is able  
> to call back his wits at once.
> 
>  _ **Lofn**_ , whom Siggy mentions, is the goddess of adultery and illicit liaisons.
> 
>  _ **Gefjon**_ is the goddess of fertility, ploughing and virginity. The Prose Edda says that all who die a virgin become her attendants. I wanted Rollo to mix up the furrowed tracks of Sansa’s plaited hair and her virginity through thinking of this goddess!
> 
>  _ **Balder**_ , who Rollo compares Athelstan to, is Odin’s dear son, and the god of light and purity.
> 
> ***
> 
> I need to share this more; if you're more of a Rollo person, well, y'know... what can I say. [HERE IS ATHELSTAN AND THIS IS WHY IT'S OK.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w30Irt3m_jU)


	18. Sansa and Justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A beautiful picset by bexmorealli because she is ACE](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/108032116152/sansa-washed-ashore-by-swimmingfox-on-ao3-chapter)

The longhouse is full today. A thick hum of anticipation in the room. A man has been accused of murdering the lover of his wife. He stands before Ragnar, awaiting his decision.

Ragnar does not always enjoy this part of his role as king. He would prefer to be checking on Floki’s progress with his designs, or talking with the princess about the ways of Westeros. This place is much developed, more than England, full of gold in the rock and tall swords made of secret steel, large armies and many farms. She talks of a great wall, separating her northlands from a vast untamed place that he cannot help but wonder if it is Niflheim.

But here, now, stands this man, red-nosed and proud, staring right back at him, and most of your village behind him, all watching. The evidence seems against him. The man accused of being his wife’s lover was her brother, which does not seem likely, and three women spoke for her, called it lies. Earl Haraldson played this part well, even if he was a hoarder and a coward. He listened to people’s word, thought on it, and almost always came up with the sentence that most people were happy with. 

Ragnar continues to lean on a single finger, pulling the skin of his cheekbone up towards his eye. ‘Audur Oleson, you do not deny killing the brother of your own wife.’

‘A brother who fucked her -'

He ruffles the hair of Ragnvald, who sits on his lap. ‘My son is present. Do not speak this way.’ His son smiles solemnly up at him.

Ragnar looks at the man’s wife. She is ashen-faced, but he thinks he understands her eyes well enough. ‘I do not believe that this woman slept with her own brother. I believe that you held a grudge against this man for not giving you the land you wanted for no money, as this woman says.‘ Ragnar points at an older lady, who nodded gravely. He speaks to Oleson’s wife. ‘We have spoken of the bruises on your face, though you will not say who put them there. You have lost a brother. I would not wish this upon anyone.’ A quick glance to Rollo, whose eyes lift up, solid, full of earth. ‘So I have decided it is only right that you should be punished by death for your crime.’ 

Oleson’s eyes widen. ‘This is not -'

‘Who agrees with my decision?’ Ragnar asks the room. A forest of hands, including Ragnvald. All except one.

***

It had none of the vast, cold beauty of the great court with its marble pillars and tapestried walls, but it was a courtroom nonetheless. A man accused of murder, a sentence by a king. There was no cruelty here, no tongues being pulled out of throats, no public stripping, and now everyone was being asked what they thought. Imagine if Joffrey had done that -

‘Sansa,’ whispered Athelstan. 

She looked at him.

‘The sentence must be ______. Agreed by everyone.’

Every single pair of eyes in the longhouse was on her. Including those of the accused man, and including Ragnar’s, the eyes of an eagle hovering over prey. They were all waiting for her to raise her hand. 

No. She didn’t want to be the one to lead this man to his death. 

‘Princess.’ Ragnar was still slouched in his chair. He beckoned to her.

The lifted hands slowly fell as Sansa made her way to him, her eyes on the floor. Feet were shuffled. Coughs.

Ragnar kept his finger curled, smiling his displeased smile, until her head was by his. ‘Princess,’ he said, his voice a smoke-trail. ‘We all agree here.’

She swallowed. Relations had been better between them since Ragnar had promised not to use her as a hostage, to use her knowledge. She had tried to think of what might be useful, even if she couldn’t possibly see how a few hundred fur-clad Northmen could ever be anything but beaten back into the sea. She had tried to tell him that and he had shrugged, stroked his beard, and continued with his questions. 

Now, however, she felt seized. Clutched between talons. ‘I – I can’t.’

‘If you do not, I look a fool. Everyone in the village looks a fool.’

‘Please don’t make me.’

His fingers ribbon the air. ‘Those bruises were not made by wrestling sheep.’

Sansa glanced at the cheekbone of the accused’s wife, which was the colour of autumn-turned heather. She thought of her own bruises, wine-spills around her ribs.

‘This man has killed the brother of his wife.’ 

She saw Joffrey’s face, the first time she had seen him after hearing of her brother’s death. Her mother’s. A sugared glee, as if he had just received a present he had been waiting for. Ragnvald put his hand on hers and she thought of Rickon’s straw-mop, his scratchy nails. 

Sansa returned to her corner, but remained standing and stared evenly at Ragnar.

‘Who agrees with my decision?’ he said again, looking right at her.

No one moved. Slowly, Sansa raised her hand, and as one, so did everyone else.

The accused man looked round the room, spat and nodded, grim-faced. 

‘How do you wish to die?’ asked Ragnar, finally sitting up a little straighter in his seat.

‘__________.’ A word she didn’t understand. She looked at Athelstan. He very gently put his hand to his throat.

***

A fresh fall of snow in the village, making the muddy paths white again. The sound of crunching feet had now stopped, everyone gathered in a circle. The big man who killed his wife’s brother stood, his beard plaited neatly, a clean fur cloak, hoping for Valhalla when the only person he would dine with was Hel. 

Today, the axe was in your hand. You did not mind. It did not happen often, this justice, and though you knew you shouldn’t think it, the crunch of human bone was something you missed. Killing a sheep was not the same thing.

Siggy was looking at you, the look of a queen watching her king-husband. She could dream.

You told the man to kneel down. ‘In the name of Forseti, we sentence you to die for the murder of Halvar Guttormson. Are you ready to meet your gods?’

You saw Sansa there too, next to the priest. _Him_. Why him? Just because he knew words. _You_ knew words. Words for many things. For weapons, for the different shades of blood, for ways to brew ale. You knew as many stories as anyone else. And many words for sex, whispered into the ears of girls with hair the texture of goat’s wool as you walked past them, maybe tugging them into a barn, maybe not. 

‘I am ready,’ said the man, oak-voiced, smiling, still thinking of drinking wine with Odin. Fool.

She was paler than even normal. You had already heard Ragnar tell her that she must watch – that everyone who gave the sentence must. She looked like she had not eaten for three days.

You raised the axe above your head. Pictured its blade-line just above the small boulder of his spine. Cut.

The head rolled like the dice in hnefatafl. You saw the man’s wife glance at your brother, who was leaning on a post in his hooded cloak. A tiny nod of thanks, which was returned.

You dropped the axe, picked up the head by his hair, and caught a sweep of amber as Sansa turned and pushed through the people, a fox-tail disappearing between trees in a dense forest.

***

As much as she could, Sansa ran. She climbed up away from the village, through the trees cloaked in snow heavy as piled hides, until Kattegat was nothing but smoke trails, the roofs out of sight below the hills. 

It had been her fault. If she had stood up for herself, for that man, he might have not have been killed. Punishments were either simple here, such as animals or money being given over, or they were outlawed, cast out of society without money or land. And she had watched something she had prayed never to see again, unless it was Joffrey’s – a man’s head being severed from his body. There one moment, not the next. 

She found a half-rotted tree trunk and collapsed onto it, her calves aching. 

Her father. His soul, his _being_ had been in his face, in its expressions of worry, anger, amusement. The tree-roots of her family had been there in his flinted eyes, the lines along his cheeks, the dark hair. In the time it had taken her to scream _no_ one more time, all of that had gone. There was a body. And a head. And the expression on the head, when Joffrey made her look at it, was waxen, aghast, unreal. And yet it had been his. Her father’s.

A red bird with a helm-like crest hopped along a branch towards her. It tossed its feathers out, tucking its beak into the underdark of its wings.

Sansa’s ears began to burn with cold. But she couldn’t go back. Not yet. She drew her cloak more tightly to her chest. Her heart was hammering out the sounds you could sometimes hear from Floki’s wood. Had anyone noticed she was gone? Athelstan would wonder, but he always left her plenty of space, even now, when she had lain with him twice.

Her father. At least she had seen his head - a vile thought, but a true one. After all, where was Robb’s body, _Robb_ ’s head? Joffrey had crowed of it returning to King’s Landing, of bringing to her on a – oh Gods, she couldn’t even go near that thought. Was he rotting at the Twins, on a spike overlooking that great river? She leant over, clutching her stomach, watching her breath tumble out of her, wishing she knew, wanting to never know.

Her breath tumbled and blended into the snow. Snow-breath. White breath into white snowdrift 

_onto white paws, there in the drifting snow, pine-needle fur and a red bird, red as blood, a little song for her to taste, and yes, blood, blood was the thing, the blood of her family, blood was still there_ -

‘What are you doing?’ Suddenly he was beside her, crunching noisily over the snow and fallen branches. A large shape, broad against the pines, snow falling off him. ‘You’re not Skadi. Are you? You will freeze.’ Darkly admonishing.

 _Wolf_ , she thought, and didn’t know why. She was too cold to say anything. 

Rollo watched her for a second, shook his head and shrugged his fur off, putting it on top of her own around her shoulders, before sitting next to her on the log.

They sat there, looking at the pillars of trees, the only sound of Sansa’s breath emerging in tiny, broom-like rasps. The heat of his body seeped into her shoulders from the inside of his fur. Her teeth chattered. He had chopped that man’s head off. _He_ had. Lifted it like Illyn Payne had done.

He turned to her. ‘It is not right to fear death. Here we face it.’ He leant slightly towards her, his shoulder against hers, his voice the warmest thing. ‘We run at it with an axe in our hand.’

‘I don’t f-fear d-death,’ said Sansa, knowing the frost in her voice sounded exactly like fear. ‘I fear -' _Memories_. She tapped her temple, and he just frowned. ‘I fear to remember. My f-father -' If she cried now, her tears would freeze into pearls on her face. _Was beheaded_. ‘Lost his h-head.’

A silence, and his shoulder came away from hers. ‘What did he do?’

‘ _Nothing_.’ It came out as a hiss. ‘He did nothing. They were going to -' _pardon him_. ‘They said he could live. They said he could live and it was a _lie_ and – I was _there_ and they made him kneel down and - he made me look at his head.’ She wanted to be sick and yet her stomach was an empty winter plain. She wanted to cry and yet her skull was a barren rock-face. ‘And my brother – they put his wolf’s head on his neck. They cut my mother’s throat.’ Her voice wound itself tightly into a ball. ‘You killed that man.’ 

Another thick silence, as silent as snowfall, as silent as a barn owl’s wingbeat. 

Rollo exhaled a long breath through his nose, like a sleeping bear. ‘I am sorry about your father, _raf refr_. I am sorry about your mother and your brother. This does not sound like ______.’ He held his palms open, looked at them. ‘But what’s done is done here. He killed a man. Ragnar decides his punishment. If the village agrees, it is done. You agreed. You were right to. It is ______.’ 

The same word again. _Justice_ , perhaps. 

She couldn’t stop shaking. Why wasn’t she crying?

Suddenly her hands were in his, collected up as if they were water he was cupping to drink, and his mouth was on her skin. Rollo was holding her hands. Hot breath spreading. His hands rubbed hers quickly, almost completely enclosing them, dark, weathered skin against her pale, raw knuckles. Warming them. There was nothing but his dry lips against her fingers. She was more paralysed than ever.

The red bird flew from the branch, a stray spark from a fire.

‘Come on.’ He stood up, not looking the slightest bit bothered that he was without his fur, and Sansa saw with a start the wolf’s head embroidered on one side of his tunic at his chest. ‘Or do you want to turn into a tree?’ There was snow on his beard, tiny flakes of it caught like crumbs, and his eyes were mud and sunlight. 

The warmth from his breath and his hands spun away from her skin into the frosted air. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said quietly.

‘A joke. Forget it.’

‘No, I mean -' _I don’t understand you. Who are you_? she thought, and followed him back to the village, her toes brittle, her knuckles pinched, and her heart clattering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _ **Forseti**_ is the Norse god of justice.
> 
> There are three quite interchangeable places that the Norse believed they would go when they died:
> 
> a) _**Helheim**_ , the home of the goddess Hel – in the later Prose Edda, it was said you only went here if you died of sickness or old age  
> b) _**Valhalla**_ , Odin’s hall of the fallen, where you could only go if you were chosen by Odin  
> c) _**Folkvang**_ , the field of the people/warriors, where you could only go if you were chosen by Frejya
> 
>  _ **Skadi**_ is a goddess of winter.
> 
>  **Norse Indoor Games School** :
> 
> I’ve used it before, but _**hnefatafl**_ was a very popular Norse strategic board game! They had a lot of time inside in the winter… I just read a lot of stuff debating whether a dice was used. RESEARCH.
> 
>  **Wolf Clothing News** : 
> 
> [Check out Rollo’s wolf on his tunic here! Looks uncannily like the Stark wolf, I say…](http://ladyhawke81.tumblr.com/post/75232201384/vikings-season-2-norse-symbols)


	19. Sansa The Spring Goddess

Sansa stood at the edge of the village, staring downwards. She could not quite believe what she was seeing. 

Water. _Water_ , not ice, the small stream carrying on several excited conversations at once. The grass around it shaking off the last of its frost, remembering its greenness. New leaves, the tiny closed fists of newborns. The dandelion-fluff of a rabbit’s tail as it disappeared between tree roots.

Water was everywhere, beading the branches of the alder and spruce trees, sparkling in the veins of the mountains, running in rivulets along the edges of the village.

Athelstan had spoken truly. Their winters were short here, their song always the same. Here, her family’s words would never have held its firm darkness. Because someone would have always countered it with their own: spring is coming.

Life changed in the village as the days lightened. Brows lifted, talk was less of old stories and more of the long summer ahead, of what crops would flourish and the raids to come. The spring raid to England and the journey to Westeros – always spoken in that lilting manner – if Floki’s boats were ready. There was no suggestion now that Sansa would go back a hostage, but she really wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back at all. Her world had shrunk to these mountains, to this village and its raw, rough-edged life, where you lived by the fast way of the weather, where people were honest and scrub-cheeked. The thought of even setting foot on her land still made her throat clot. Too much had happened there. When she thought of Westeros, she saw only blood - a dew of it on the grass, rivers breaking pink over rocks, the roads churned red.

Here, in Kattegat’s coming spring, she saw only the clear water, water with the brightness of new-blown glass.

***

‘Do you remember when we returned from England last time? After King Horik?’

Now that the snows have shrunk back like a tide, Lagertha has returned to Kattegat with men from her village to help Floki with his boat-building. Huts have been built in the forest to house them and others are being hosted by villagers. Last night they had held a welcome feast and broke hard-cooked eggs together. This morning Ragnar’s head feels like an eggshell with many cracks in it.

‘Remember what?’ says Lagertha. Today she has braids like harvested corn along the sides of her head. Her face is the colour of porridge and honey.

Ragnar was married to her for fourteen years. He knows from her voice that she remembers very well. ‘The night we all spent together.’ Him. Her. Aslaug.

Lagertha does not look at him. She folds her arms. ‘That was a mistake. It had been a difficult day.’

‘But it was good, was it not?’ He leans over towards her slightly, enough to smell her meadow-scent. 

She takes a step further away. ‘Ragnar. I would prefer not to speak of it. Do not think for a moment that this will happen every time I set foot in Kattegat. I have to set my son an example.’

He decides it is not the best time to tell her about his Jul-tide encouragements to Bjørn. He thinks instead about his wife sitting on top of him, his other wife’s leg entangled in his. Her mouth on her mouth. Wife, ex-wife. He did not dream it.

She knows his mind too well. She knows in his eyes what he is thinking of. ‘Stop it, Ragnar. I am an earl now. One day I will marry again. A strong man who knows his own mind and finds me alone enough to satisfy him.’

The idea of Lagertha marrying a man who is not him is painful, an eagle with its claws outstretched landing on his heart. ‘I do not know a man who will match you.’

‘You mean that you do not know a man to match you, yet you proved yourself unworthy to me.’

He has no answer to this. 

She seems to have had enough of her sport. ‘How is Sansa?’

‘Well. She speaks our tongue as if it is her own, almost. I have learnt many more things about her. She has lost much.’ He tells her what he knows of her family now, some of it told to him by Rollo - her father beheaded, her brother turned into a wolf, her mother’s throat cut. He tells her also of her talk of the north of her land, of how many want to rule, but perhaps none do. This interests him.

‘I hope you are treating her with respect.’ Her eyes firm and Ragnar is gripped in them.

He holds up his hands. ‘Of course. I can only have one wife and one ex-wife. This is enough for me. I believe Athelstan is –‘ he allows his voice to feather. ‘Looking after her needs.’

Lagertha stares at him. ‘Athelstan?’

He shrugs. ‘It is not spoken of, but I have ears. And eyes.’ It is Aslaug, with her knowing eyes that sweep the village as thoroughly as a broom, who suggested it. And then Rollo, telling him this information as if it was enough for Ragnar to start a war. At first it angered him, the princess with his friend, until he decided that some experience is not a bad thing in a woman. Lagertha being proof of that. Aslaug also. 

‘Athelstan is not the man he first was,’ Lagertha says, her voice thoughtful.

‘He is not.’ Ragnar has seen Athelstan be gently pulled towards a woman’s room more than once. And he fights well. ‘They remind me of you and I when we first knew each other.’

‘When we first knew each other, I was putting a shield between the eyes of the man who was trying to kill you.’

He remembered her blood-lust eyes, the moment after she had stopped yelling, the way she looked at him. He smiles. ‘After that.’

***

‘You are too slow. Walk faster!’

Sansa was following Thorunn on a long trail up through the pine forests. Mud nibbled at her boots and she tried to recall the sorts of shoes she had worn in Kings Landing – thin, ribboned sandals that would have frayed to nothing in moments here. 

Though the air was still cool, the sun was high and bright, fluttering down through the trees. The path was full of ferns like the splayed feathers of many different birds, and the pale flowers of willowherb peeked through the snow-slush.

As the season had slowly begun to turn, Thorunn had recommenced Sansa’s training. She made her chop wood, swinging the axe high over her head. She played endless games of catch, running after her and trying to pinch her sides whilst Bjørn laughed at them both. She had started learning how to use a shield if not a sword or an axe yet. At other times they sat and talked, about Ragnar, about Lagertha, about Athelstan. 

Today was not one of those times. Today, Thorunn was in a demanding mood. ‘ _Faster_ , Sansa.’

‘I _am_ ,’ said Sansa, feeling the dampness of sweat at her spine. ‘How much further?’

Thorunn’s voice came back down to her as she clambered over a huge granite boulder. ‘Not far. If you are faster.’ 

After what seemed like endless climbing, her hands growing filthy as she hauled herself up the rocks, Sansa began to hear something, a sound like the hissing of a thousand mosquitos, or a cloud of moths. Above her, Thorunn was standing with her feet apart on top of a tall stone, hands on her hips, as if she had just conquered it. When Sansa finally reached it, she couldn’t help but gasp. 

Something rather more beautiful than mosquitos or moths. Behind her, escaping from a deep cleft of rock high above, was a magnificent waterfall. A long plume like a white horse’s tail, or the skirts of a slender giant. Moss and green-glossed plants hung from the rocks around it and the sun added its own drops. It felt like a sept.

‘Come.’ Thorunn crouched down and began to remove her boots.

‘What are you doing?’

Thorunn rolled her eyes. ‘What do you think?’ She stood up, shrugging off her short fur and unbuttoning the neck of her woollen dress.

Sansa had been used to bathing in the sea until the winter had closed in, and since then had managed by splashing herself with fire-warmed water, or the occasional bath. It seemed far too early to be bathing outside again. ‘It will be cold,’ she said, knowing she sounded like an idiot.

‘Yes.’ Thorunn wriggled her arms out of her dress. 

‘But – what if someone sees?’

She shrugged. ‘What if they do? It is just a body.’ Her skin was the colour of the inside of a hazlenut, her ribs jutting slightly. Dark-brown nipples and fine blonde hair. 

Sansa looked around. Shadowed, dark green trees, high rocks. It was very quiet, apart from the gushing water. ‘Fine,’ she said, removing her boots and stockings. 

Gods, she hadn’t been naked in front of anyone but her maids since she was small. She took a great gulp of air, held her breath as if she was already in the water and discarded her dress before she had exhaled again. Her skin speckled into gooseflesh.

Thorunn, who looked as comfortable naked as clothed, gave her a quick, up-down scrape of a look, before grabbing her hand and pulling her along a shallow rock shelf towards the falls. The pool was opaque, slate-coloured, and lit golden-green here and there by the sun. Fine spray misted them both, as prickly as summer gnats. 

Sansa was already giggling at the sheer brazenness of it. And the cold. ‘Thorunn, wait, I’m not -‘ 

It was too late. Thorunn kept dragging her, both of them slipping on the wet stone, until they were right under the force of the waterfall.

Sansa did the only thing she could. She screamed.

***

The deer, a ghost in the trees. Sun-dappled skin and sun-dappled bark. Arrow up, steady.

Wait. Noises. Up in the forest. 

Shouting. 

Fear.

***

The sound was incredible. Giants at battle, the world breaking open like an egg. 

They stood, their hair slicked to their backs, wild yells mixing with the ceaseless roar. The water pummelled down on Sansa’s head and shoulders as she imagined arrows might from the ramparts of a castle, digging into her skin. A thousand arrows, a thousand winternights drums, a thousand dancers dancing on their heads. Perhaps the two of them would be drummed right into the mossy rock where they stood. It was so painful that it was easy to forget how cold it was, an iciness that burnt. 

Thorunn fumbled for her hand again, shouted something that got lost amongst the angry cascade, and pulled her straight into the pool below.

Sansa never made so much noise in her whole life. For the last two years she had trained herself to be quiet, controlled, with every word carefully examined and cloth-polished before she uttered it. Now, as she shot up out of the water, the clouds of cold, misted breath rolling from her throat felt like a ghost of herself, something she was shedding. Thorunn was clambering out of the pool, standing above her on the shelf, hands on her thighs, laughing at her. Sansa threw back her head and shouted again, a long, wordless sound that flew amongst the rock like a wild bird.

Both of them kept shouting as they jumped up and down, trying to get warm, walking around the pool towards their boots and clothes.

‘You are so funny,’ said Thorunn, shivering, droplets flying off her as she shook her hands. ‘You are so quiet and calm and then –‘ she stopped dead. 

Sansa walked straight into the back of her. ‘ _Thorunn_ –‘ and then she saw what Thorunn was looking at. _Who_ she was looking at.

Rollo, standing at the tree-line with a bow and arrow, looking at them.

Thorunn put her hands on her hips. ‘What are you doing?’

 _Gods_. He was right there. And they were both – their dresses were several steps away. Sansa crammed her arms in front of her chest and stayed behind Thorunn, wanting to melt into water, drain away. _Gods_.

He was out of breath. ‘I heard screaming.’

Thorunn shrugged. ‘So?’

Rollo lowered his bow and arrow and looked past them both. His eyes seemed to be fixed just past Sansa’s shoulder, though he was a little far away to be sure. His head jerked, angrily. ‘What are _you_ doing?’

‘What does it look like? Bathing. On our _own_.’

The waterfall was loud enough that they both had to shout, which made everything seem more ridiculous. Sansa hardly dared look at him. She was _not wearing any clothes_.

‘You should have a guard,’ he almost-yelled.

‘We don’t need a guard. I can fight.’

His eyes darted to Sansa’s and hers flew up to the sky. ‘She cannot.’

Thorunn tilted her chin up. ‘We _don’t_ need a guard.’ She took a step forward, away from Sansa, meaning oh _gods_ that he could see all of her, and at the same time Rollo was striding forward, to do what she didn’t know, and – 

He reached their clothes, bent down and picked them up, and continued walking towards them, his jaw set. Thorunn took her corn-yellow dress from him and Rollo stretched his arm out to Sansa, eyeing her firmly now.

His face was unreadable. Not embarrassed, with maybe the slightest spark in his eye, the bright green of spring there. She didn’t look long, taking her dress from him, turning and tugging it over herself. When she had put her head through, he was already walking away. 

Thorunn, now roughly dressed herself with the laces at the back of her gown as straggly as her hair, glanced round at Sansa rather pensively, before breaking out into a grin.

***

No screams now. Now you only heard their laughter, coming through the trees like valkyries’ shrieking spears as you took the path back down towards the village, feeling ready to murder. They were laughing at you.

Screams that you had known to be girls, really, but – it would have been wrong not to make sure that they were not girls being attacked by giants, like in the old stories. And they were from the old stories – they _were_ Ostara, the pair of them. 

Bjorn’s little angry girl and the _raf refr_. Naked but for the water streaming off them. On a different day, in a different realm, these two would have been waiting there just for you, calling to you from those rocks in their night-owl voices, waiting for your mouth, your hands, your cock.

Thorunn was a fine-looking thing – you had always suspected she would be. Elbows that would probably break the skin of your cheekbones. But Sansa – you knew it was her straightaway, as if you had seen her naked many times. For a moment, you had thought, _yes, there she is_ , as if she was the end of a long story that you had heard before. She made you think of an arctic tern, the arrow-point of dark hair down her back, her winter-pale skin. Stronger shoulders than you imagined – Thorunn’s work.

Two rabbits, along the path. You aimed quickly, loosed, strung again, loosed. Got them both.

***

Athelstan had a finger inside her, curled as if beckoning, and maybe he was, beckoning the whole of her towards something she couldn’t quite be sure of, something dark but full of promise. His mouth was on her collarbone, planting kisses like cassiope buds, one by one.

It was the fourth time that Sansa had slipped into his bed. He had never come to her – it seemed that he preferred to let her decide when she wanted to lie with him – but once under the furs, there was always something new to learn. Her hands on him. His mouth on her. Sideways, facing each other, trying to not to giggle at being nose to nose. 

She couldn’t help thinking of Rollo in the forest, the skin-thorns of mortification as she stood there in front of him. _With no clothes on_. He had probably seen more of her than Athelstan had – it was always dark, they were always under furs – and she had had no choice but to just stand there, trying to be like Thorunn, who probably wouldn’t have cared if the whole village had been staring at her.

Concentrate. It was becoming easier to – one finger becoming two, cassiope buds becoming cranberry becoming purple saxifrage, darker and deeper, and Sansa’s mind beginning to free. Part of her was fixed on the feeling of Athelstan gathering her up, making her more slick with every movement, thinking _how does he do that_ and part of her was somewhere else entirely, wandering the low alpine moorlands looking for the flowers that he reminded her of. Trailing through long grasses and dwarf birch trees no higher than her, and - _oh Gods, that was so_ – a wind like feathers on her face, and – _there again_ – willow trees and dense leaves underfoot, and – _oh, just there_ , and -

The trees seem to have got higher. Curled, twisted branches, twisting round each other, clutching

_branches overhead, curling and twisted. A wind like the feathers of a bird she had snapped at. Long grasses. There was mud on her paws, mottled with the grey and red of her fur. And a feeling deeper than the red of her blood, twisting in her sinews._

_There were others nearby. She could smell them. Iron and musk and hot blood. Clutching deep inside her, twisting far away from her. There were others and they were her blood-wolves and they were waiting for her call. Her muzzle met the sky, and she sang her long, curling cry and_

‘Sansa. Um -’

Sansa’s chin was tipped towards the roof of the longhouse, her neck stretched upwards. Her skin was damp as an alpine meadow. She tasted blood.

Athelstan was tangled up in her, curled and twisted amongst her limbs, but leaning away a little, looking at her with a mixture of amazement and something akin to trepidation.

‘Yes?’ she said in a whisper, her voice feeling new, as if it had been sailing amongst the clouds. _Yes. Athelstan was here_.

His thumb came up to his lip and he looked at it before showing it to her. A darker spot. Blood.

She drew her bottom lip in, tasted the iron. She had bitten him. _Gods_. ‘I’m sorry.’ A bewilderment drifted over her. What had just happened? She didn’t remember –

He rolled onto his side next to her, pulling her close to him by the waist. She could feel her dampness on his fingers. ‘It doesn’t matter. I think it means you liked it. That, and –‘ he smiled at her.

She hardly dared ask. There had been mountains, and birch trees, and – ‘What?’

His eyebrows furrowed a little, but he continued to smile, putting his mouth to her ear and whispering. ‘You howled.’

***

You rolled the girl over, and over again. Twisted her round. Made sure she gasped well enough. Your gasps were more like sighs, sighs you could not help, and more than once she looked back at you, frowning, knowing your mind was somewhere else. You turned her head back round to the wall. 

She was lucky, this village girl you hardly knew, lying with you, a warrior, with your body, your ways. You knew how to please a woman when you felt like it. Anyone would be lucky. _She_ would be lucky, with her skin dressed in waterfall and her fox hair and her wolf-eyes, which you saw in front of you like a vision of spring as you stumbled back down the path, to the end of the village, to your own house, to Siggy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> In March, the Festival of **_Ostara (Eostre)_** , the Spring Goddess, is celebrated. It’s a festival of renewal, rejoicing and fertility, though it’s still DAMNED cold in the north! Coloured eggs would be given to friends and loved ones as a way of wishing them well for the coming season – a magical ritual of prosperity of fecundity. The rabbit is a symbol of this festival. So it’s spot the rabbit in this chapter! 
> 
> Eggs and rabbits = then incorporated into the Christian Easter (or, check it, Eostre) festival.
> 
> I actually nicked **_shrieking spears_** from an Old English charm: ‘mighty fighting women’ tearing over the battlefield throwing small, ‘shrieking’ spears is certainly linked to Norse valkyries.
> 
>  **Norse wildflower school** :
> 
> Ha, had fun exploring Scandinavian mountain flowers for sexy Athelstan-time. Click on the links!
> 
> [Matted cassiope](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-white/matted-cassiope.htm) White, often with a pink tint, nodding flowers borne on slender stems. Very common throughout the mountains in damp locations, like snowfields.
> 
> [Cranberry](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-purple/small-cranberry.htm) A small creeping evergreen subshrub with pink to red flowers and a red berry. Common in wet mossy woods and heaths.
> 
> [Purple Saxifrage](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-purple/purple-saxifrage.htm) Solitary stalkless purple flowers appearing early summer. Common on wet, rocky mountain slopes and screes.


	20. Sansa And The Rain (Part One)

'Can you remember them? Your family?'

Sansa and Athelstan were sitting on a rock at the far end of the bay as dusk came slowly in. She had an ankle wrapped around his and a thumb tucked into his palm, though to anyone else seeing them from afar, you would not have known that they were touching at all.

Athelstan continued to look out at the darkening-emerald sea. 'Not really. I can't picture their faces.' He exhaled a small, thoughtful breath, as if he was trying to understand some new words she had just given him. 'I know them in fragments - my mother had brown hair, lighter than mine, green eyes. A mole on her cheek.’ His finger ghosted up to his face. ‘One of her teeth was cracked, here. But -' his thumb touched her knuckle, lightly. ‘I can’t recreate her. They stay as fragments. Like a broken mirror.’ He finally looked over at her with a wistful smile. ‘I wish I had drawn them.'

A deep well of sorrow opened up in Sansa's stomach. For him, and for herself. She could still see all of her family, quite clearly, but she knew what he meant. That they would fade, etchings in old books. They would retreat from her, however much she tried to summon them. She was often scared that if she didn’t think of them enough, if she didn’t work at constructing Arya’s face, or Bran’s, painting them from memory, that she _would_ forget.

'I'm sorry,’ he said. ‘It's not helping you.'

Sansa shook her head. ‘It’s nice to hear you talk of them.’ 

There was a rumble, far off, and she watched the clouds bloom, ink in water. Thor’s hammer, Bjørn had told her once, miming a large, smashing gesture and making ridiculous explosive noises.

Athelstan flattened his palm onto the top of her thigh. ‘Don’t be sad for me. It was a long time ago. This is my family now.’ His eyes had the sea’s emerald-dark glimmer as he smiled. ‘Ragnar, Bjørn, Floki. Everyone. They are all my family.’

Another rumble. She put her hand over his and drew it slowly up between her legs, her skirt gathering under his fingers.

The sky and the sea pulled in towards each other.

***

‘Storms.’ The seer breathes in deeply through his nose. ‘They are coming.’

The rain has already started. ‘Storms,’ Ragnar says. ‘Real storms?’

‘As real as this rain on the roof. As real as you. As I.’

‘When we sail to West-er-os? Or England?’

‘Maybe. Maybe long before this.’

Ragnar sits back, sighs, plays with the small animal skulls that are placed in a row on a table. An eagle, a hare, a goat, a – he didn’t even know what that one was. ‘You never say what you mean.’

‘I say what the gods tell me. It is they who speak in riddles, not I.’

‘Then the gods should learn to speak more plainly.’

‘I will tell them that.’ He means no such thing.

Ragnar puts down the strange animal skull – is it a child? - and rises.

‘Ragnar.’ He licks the seer’s hand. It tastes of old parsnips. ‘Take heed. Look outwards, and look carefully. Be watchful.’

He sighs again. ‘Yes, old man, alright.’

***

The water that had announced spring now turned into rain. A dark, thick rain, a rain like fish-glue. Hair was plastered to necks, dresses to legs, and villagers ran awkwardly from doorway to doorway, loudly smacking their way through mud-puddles. 

Sansa was sitting under an awning watching the end of her skirt darken. She had been inside all day, helping Siggy with the children, weaving wool, the smells of bodies and animals and smoke thickening in her throat. However horrible it was, she needed to be outside, just for a moment. Athelstan had been helping Floki – his drawing skills had found their uses with the boat-maker - and was still gone.

‘Hello, _raf refr_.’ Rollo sat down next to her, the raindrops clinging like tiny jewels to his fur cloak. A very soaked hare hung by its feet from his fingers, and he dumped it between them. As always, he seemed to appear from nowhere, emerging from the air into this tall, dark bulk by some strange twist of magic. He had been away for many days, seeking out other villages that might offer men to Ragnar’s cause.

She shifted enough away from the hare so that it wasn’t touching her. ‘Hello.’

He made a sound behind closed lips like distant thunder and folded his hands before looking at her, registering her shape – her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped round them. ‘You don’t like rain?’

‘Do you?’

He peered upwards at a sky that looked like dented armour. ‘It is just rain. It will stop.’ And he tipped his chin to his chest and shook his head violently, his dank, loose hair spraying her with water.

‘ _Rollo_.’ She wiped a palm over her face and stared at him, a little incredulous. Was this him being – _playful_? With a slight jolt in her ribs, she realised that she had said his name to him, perhaps for the first time since she was properly introduced.

He didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘What? You didn’t mind being wet last time I saw you.’

A heat-prickle crawled up her neck. The waterfall, and him standing there with a bow and arrow, his jaw open. ‘That was – different.’

‘I don’t like people laughing at me.’ His face went a little darker.

‘We were not -' they _were_ , she thought, trying to bite her grin away – ‘it was just funny. I’m sorry.’

He looked at her, a rock-scurr gaze, for a long moment. She stared back. _Don’t be angry_ , she thought.

Rollo smiled. A broad, genuine smile that felt new. ‘Next time, you should take a blanket to dry with.’ He looked back out at the deluge. ‘It’s what I do anyway.’ He proceeded to gather his long, rain-blackened hair into his fists and wrung it out like a rope. 

She felt her stomach wrench, as if it too was being twisted in his fingers. Rollo, diving into the pool in the forest. Gods. Where was Athelstan?

They sat there, watching the rain. Sansa could feel the heat steaming off him. The smile had left creases at the corners of his eyes like tiny mud-paths. He seemed to love the wild weather, always striding around in the strong winds, the thick snows, as if they were brothers in battle.

Rollo pulled out a cooked chicken leg from the pocket of his cloak, eyed it, and began to gnaw. ‘Who was this king you were to marry?’ he said with his mouth full, turning to her. ‘Before the dwarf?’

Ragnar had asked for more details of the Lannister family. More of her life there. It had helped to talk of it, and it had helped for Athelstan to be there, to hear it, to understand her.

‘Joffrey.’ Her blood chilled to think of him. Bathwater left overnight. ‘A prince. Then the king. He -' _he had his guards beat me_. She didn’t know the word. ‘He – men hit me.’

Rollo stopped chewing and looked at her.

‘Joffrey looked. Watched.’

He sat back slowly until his back met the slanting panel behind them, his eyes never leaving her. ‘Hit you.’

Sansa nodded. She unclasped her legs and straightened. Slowly, she brought her fingers to her ribs, her back. 

His eyes followed her hand. ‘I would have killed him,’ he said, pulling a bit of greased chicken from the bone and stuffing it in his mouth. ‘I would have gutted him at his wedding table and given his entrails to the pigs.’ He smiled again.

‘But - you would have been killed. Twyin would have killed you straight away.’

He shrugged and kept chewing. ‘Maybe. It would have been in the hands of the gods.’ There was a sheen of chicken fat on his bottom lip. Or perhaps it was rain. Sansa thought faintly about wiping it off. What was wrong with her?

‘Lagertha killed her second husband,’ he said. ‘Some earl. He put his hands on her too many times. She cut out his eye.’ He threw the clean leg bone onto the path.

Sansa imagined leaping onto a feast table in the Red Keep, picking up a boar-knife, lunging at Joffrey. 

‘It can be different here,’ he said. 

She swallowed and nodded. ‘I know.’

He was still watching her. She felt as if her skin was shifting under his gaze, slow-moving sand pushed by a tide. ‘Thorunn is training you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ He looked up at the slate-grey sky. ‘I need to go.’ Another half-smile, his skin furrowing. ‘This hare won’t eat itself.’

 _You don’t have to_ , she thought, watching the droplets scatter from him as he rose, feeling his warmth seep away.

***

You were both lying on your backs, staring at the ceiling as the rain fell like grain being scattered on the roof. Chests heaving.

‘You do not wish to marry me.’ It was not a question. Siggy’s head was turned towards you, hill-green eyes wide. Not angry.

Did she have to do this now, when you had just spent yourself, when all you wanted to do was sleep? ‘I’m tired.’

‘I’m tired. Of this. Of you.’ It is the first time in a while that she had sounded this way. ‘You do not treat me as you should, Rollo.’ 

There was nothing to say to that. How should you treat her, this woman who flitted through the village as if she was Huginn and Munin, bringing back news that was not news. She still wanted to beat Ragnar, to somehow find a way to be more powerful than him, and you knew that that could never be so. This woman who slept with the king and said it was for you. Why should you not sleep with other women? Why should you not sit next to Sansa, just to look at her? Talk to her, just to hear her speak your words like they had been pulled apart and sewn back together? 

You took your arm out from underneath Siggy’s neck. ‘How should I treat you?’

The rain had turned to pebbles now. ‘Like your wife.’

‘You are not my wife.’ When you had shaken water from your hair everywhere, Sansa said your name and it had sounded like a bloody little spring flower uncurling. _Rollo_.

Siggy sat up, a fast movement. ‘I am your wife in everything but name. I cook for you, clean for you, we make love together, I listen to you when all you do is talk about is how bored you are.’

‘If I bother you so much, why do you stay?’

‘Maybe I will not stay.’

You blinked. This was the first time she had ever said this. She had stayed when you had spent more time in forest ditches than in the house. When your leg had been so bad from the bastard-horses in England you thought you would never recover. 

It made you panic, just a little. You didn’t always want her there, but you didn’t want her _gone_. ‘Wait until the summer,’ you said, keeping your voice lazy, taking a lock of her hair and winding it round your hand. ‘It will be different then – when we go to England, to West-er-os.’ You didn’t want to say how it would be different. 

The look she gives you is like chilled butter. ‘Maybe I will travel with you sooner than that. When you go to the far villages. Maybe there is an earl there who will appreciate my company more than you.’

Her stubbornness never worked on you. It just made you even moreso. You let go of her hair, pulled the fur up over yourself and turned away from her. ‘Do what you like.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> **  
> Old Norse Mythology School:  
>   
> 
>  _ **Huginn**_ and _**Munin**_ are the two ravens that flies over the world, Midgard. The name Huginn mean ‘thought’ and Munin ‘memory or mind’. The two ravens fly out over all the world every morning and return every evening to whisper all that they have seen and heard to Odin.


	21. Sansa And The Rain (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting this up double-quick for MissMallora.

Ragnar kneels opposite Athelstan, watching him as a hawk watches a meadow-mouse. Athelstan is also kneeling. He has his eyes closed and his hands in front of him. As peaceful as if he is asleep. 

Ragnar looks out of the window. The sackcloth is wet and flapping like the skin of a corpse. It has not stopped raining for three days.

‘Ragnar.’

He looks back at Athelstan, whose eyes are open now, not blinking. ‘Yes?’

‘Do you want to do this?’

‘Yes.’ He places his hands in front of him, flat, thumbs together, fingertips touching his beard. Athelstan is teaching Ragnar the English prayer to their mother-god.

‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.’

‘Ave Mar-i-a, grat-i-a plena, Dominu te-cum.’

It is not in English. It is in another tongue, one that they use to speak to their god. The sounds are slow, heavy, wood being chopped or stone being cut, like the prayer is the thing in the middle of the trunk or the stone, the thing to be shaped.

‘Domin _us_ tecum.’

‘Domin _us_ tecum.’

Floki thinks it is a sin to learn these words, to speak them. But Ragnar does not. He wants to know the ways of _all_ men, not just his own, and this means understanding all gods. He has made the princess tell him some of her own prayers, and she told him one for her Father also, and he gave her the story of Odin and his nine nights hanging from Yggdrasil in return. And Athelstan – he is like Ragnar. He embraces the gods. Ragnar’s gods, and a little of his own. Odin and Baldur, God and Jes-us Christ. Mary. Frejya. Mother. They are not all so different, he and Athelstan and this girl, and all their gods.

‘Benedicta tu in mulieribus,’ Athelstan says.

‘Benedicta tu – what is this part?’

‘Blessed art thou among women.’

Ragnar opens one eye. ‘Blessed are all women.’

Athelstan’s eyes remain closed. ‘Blessed art _thou_ among women.’

‘Do you believe that, Athelstan?’ he says. Athelstan opens his eyes. ‘That this woman Mary is the prettiest?’

Athelstan gives Ragnar a patient gaze, as if to a child of three. ‘It is not about her being the prettiest.’

‘The most _blessed_ , then.’ His mouth curls. ‘I do not think that she is your favourite of women right now.’

Athelstan’s eyes do not change. Monk-eyes. He has not lost them. Ragnar might as well have just dumped him here off the longship from England. 

‘How do you find the princess, Athelstan?’ he says, his words like tiny, lapping waves.

Athelstan takes a patient breath in and does not speak straight away, as if his breath will tell him what to say. The rain falls. ‘It is her choice.’

‘Oh, I am sure,’ says Ragnar, sitting back on his heels, clasping his fingers as if still in prayer, rolling his eyes over his friend. ‘Why would she not?’

The faintest blood-colour rises to Athelstan’s cheek. 

‘Nothing to tell me then, of this woman you have been enjoying?’

Athelstan moves, sits cross-legged. ‘It is private, Ragnar. She is not – it should not be talked of.’

‘Still so English.’

Athelstan sips another breath, gives a wry shake of the head.

Ragnar speaks lightly. ‘Then I am sorry to have asked. She is a beautiful girl.’ He looks nonchalant. ‘Who is to marry my son one day.’

Athelstan’s eyes go a little rounder then, like a rabbit’s. ‘Oh.’ He looks at the window. ‘I didn’t know.’ Lines between his eyes, two knife-dents in goat’s cheese. ‘Does - she want to?’

‘She will.’ The seer said he would marry the daughter of a king. Or sail the many seas. He was impatient to know which. Perhaps it may be both. ‘I have decided that it would be best to wait. See what West-er-os is like. It is only worth him marrying her if there is land to be had. Alliances to be made.’ 

Athelstan does not speak, looking at the window again, his hands resting on his knees.

‘What are you waiting for?’ says Ragnar.

Athelstan blinks. ‘What?’

Ragnar rises onto his knees again, brings his hands up together. ‘Are you going to finish this prayer to your second most blessed woman or not?’

***

‘How is Athelstan?’ Siggy had appeared from nowhere, her voice soft as lambswool, but always the heat and danger there of something else. 

Sansa swallowed and laid the cloak she was embroidering for Thorunn on her lap. ‘He is well. Thank you.’

‘I am glad to see that you and he – have become more than friends.’ Siggy tipped her head to the side and studied the weaving threads, gold and green, that Sansa was sewing.

Sansa smiled carefully. She didn’t know what else to say. Everyone wanted to know everything about it. Nothing was private here. Thorunn was constantly trying to find out every detail of their - _lovemaking_ , and when Sansa protested that she didn’t know the words – this wasn’t in the slightest bit true, as Athelstan would whisper each new thing to her as he did it – Thorunn would say ‘ _draw it_ ’ instead. 

‘Sansa – I don’t know what it was like in your land –‘ those last words faintly emphasised, as if to suggest they were something from a story, something not quite tangible. ‘But here men require loyalty.’ She gave a wry half-smile. ‘They do not always give it back, yet they want it for themselves.’

Siggy reminded her of a cave lioness, one from an illustration in one of her old books. Reclining, seemingly about to sleep, and on the next page, gnawing at an elk it had caught. 

Loyalty. Sansa felt a small blood-throb of guilt at – _what_? ‘I know you don’t like me so very much,’ she said slowly, looking for the cracks in the ice. ‘But I do want to be your friend. I am so grateful for you looking after me – when I first came here.’

Siggy looked at her, that watchful almost-smile poised, gold and green in her eyes. ‘You can be my friend by being grateful for what you have. By not looking for more.’ She rose, her skirts hushing themselves, and left the room.

***

You had a nephew under each arm, as if they were baby goats you were taking to be sold. 

‘I am going to roast you first,’ you said to Hvitserk, who had his eyes and his nose scrunched up. You hefted Ragnvald a little higher and leant down to his ear. ‘And then I am going to chop you up and eat you with carrots and butter.’ 

‘ _No_!’ they shouted together.

You pretended to drop them both, your arms loosening, catching them at the last moment. ‘Stop your bleating, then and do what your mother tells you to. Just this once.’ 

Aslaug smiled at you, the smile like a dark jewel she was always polishing. Behind her, Siggy came out with Ivar in her arms, and saw you with the boys wriggling in your grasp. A strange half-look – thoughtful, impatient, wondering, wondering about those being _your_ boys, your boys with her.

You let them gently go to the floor and shrugged at her, before slipping out to find something else to do, very fast.

***

Black sky, black mountains, black sea.

The rain had thinned a little. It smelt of iron and copper and mud. Sansa stood wrapped up on the porch at the side of the longhouse, watching the drips pull away from the wooden roof, her cloak wrapped round her shoulders. It was the middle of the night, and the only sound, as it had been for days, was of rain. Black sky, black mountains, black sea.

Siggy’s wide eyes, cat-green, blameful. Sansa had always hated being blamed – cheeks hot and wet with outrage if Arya accused her of stealing cakes. Blame had turned into something quite different at King’s Landing, and whilst this was nothing compared to what she had endured there, Siggy’s words were crumbs lodged in her throat. It was about Rollo – what else could it have been? But Sansa hadn’t _done_ anything – it was Rollo who had always approached _her_. She had a vague smear of memory about Winternights, but surely he would have said something later, if anything had happened. After all – she shut her eyes, remembering his first proposition, in blunt words she could barely understand.

He perplexed her. One moment he was looking at his lap suggestively, the next he seemed to be protecting her from his brother’s schemes, or displaying a sort of gruff, blasé chivalry whilst stuffing his face full of food. And he _was_ handsome, of course he was, but – 

It was cold. She started stamping a heel on the toes of her other foot. Hard.

But Athelstan – Athelstan made her skin feel like morning frost when he touched her, frost and earth. She felt safe when she was with him, curled up with her ear on his chest before she went back to her own bed. He awakened her mind, too, telling her as she lay with him of the lands south of England, the things men believed in there and the odd, tendril-curls of their words, quietly laughing at her when she tried to say them back.

Rollo was dark, and warm, and about as as refined as a bale of hay. But - she thought of the newness and assuredness of the smile he had given her under the awning in the rain. It was as if the fine threads had always been in his face and she’d just never seen them. Gods. The rain was getting into her stomach. Maybe Siggy was right.

Black sky, black mountains, black –

Wait. Sansa stopped banging on her toes and looked out between the long valley, at the slight rinse of light that was the sky. There. It was as if a star had fallen and was bobbing on the waves, very far out. _Two_ stars. 

Except there couldn’t be any stars, with the clouds thickened as they were.

Three stars.

***

‘Ragnar.’

The princess is touching the skin of his shoulder. Her hand is wet. Her eyes are wide and alive. He tries to drag himself out of sleep.

‘Wake up.’ Sansa’s voice is a hiss of wind in trees heavy with leaf.

He has thought of it. Of course he has. She has fire-coloured hair that he would like to wrap around his fingers. The curve of her lower back is like an Eastern sword. But Aslaug would never agree. He sits up a little and wonders how to play this. _Yes, princess, of course, we will find room for you in here_ –

‘There’s a light. Out on the water. I think there are people coming.’

Thoughts of her and them and limbs and furs are sliced in two. His mind snaps into focus. They are not expecting the men from other villages yet. It can only mean one thing.

They are being attacked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  **
> 
> Old Dutch Language School
> 
>  
> 
> I decided that Athelstan was teaching Sansa a little bit of Old Dutch, also known as Old Low Franconian, which was spoken by people in Northern Belgium and Northern France between the 5th and 12th centuries. Pillow talk, huh? The sexy minx.


	22. Sansa And The Attackers (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For HeyYouWithTheFace, ‘cause he is awesome with battle scenes and also proper awesome full stop.

You were dreaming of being in the forest, of water, of running. Running from men. Ragnar was at the front of them, his eyes two dragon-flames, a spear as long as Gungir in his hand. You had betrayed him. He was behind you, his breath on your neck, his spear digging deep along your spine, the men behind him shouting.

The door slammed open. Torstein was there. People shouting. Sounds of running.

‘Attackers,’ he said before disappearing, leaving a block of blue night sky and rain, and your blood warmed. 

‘Rollo?’ Siggy's voice, soft in the dark.

‘Stay here.’ You picked up an axe on your way out.

***

Ragnar is up and moving slickly before the princess has straightened. He is at the porch, looking out. His mind is hurtling like a deer through a forest. He is running to the doors of Bjørn, of Torstein, threading instructions, throwing open the door to the weapons barn, running back to his wife. 

‘Go with Orvar and Ralf.’

Alsaug is standing with Ivar in her arms, the older boys rubbing sleep from their eyes with boulder-fists. ‘No.’

Ragnar stops. ‘Yes. Up into the hills.’

Her back is straight as a new-forged sword. ‘I did that before.’

He comes back over to her, puts a hand on her cheek. ‘My love. It is not safe here. You have a duty to protect our sons.’ He wants to burrow into her eyes, hibernate there. ‘My sons.’

Her eyes close for a moment and when they open again they are cloudless. She nods, and he leaves them.

Ragnar has ideas of who it might be. But it does not matter.

What matters is that they are coming in boats. And that they are coming to kill them.

***

Sansa had never heard Ragnar shout before. She hadn’t thought it possible that a man whose words could slip and slide like the sun on merry water could bellow as he did, calling for everyone to wake, for women to run and hide, throwing words up into the air as if they were the weapons themselves.

When she realised that people were coming to attack them, she had felt a desperate rent of fear in her lungs. It would be Petyr. Twyin Lannister. Cersei. But Bjørn had almost collided into her and told her that they were longships. Northmen, then. They weren’t here for her.

Athelstan ran past her and she caught him by the sleeve. ‘Athelstan -'

He stopped, looked at her, put hands on her elbows. ‘You need to go with Aslaug and Siggy and the children. Quickly.’ 

‘Where?’

‘Into the mountains - to the old farms.’

‘But –‘ she held onto his arm. ‘What about you?’

His nightblue, nightgreen eyes were grim, and they were bright. ‘I’m going to fight. Be safe.’ 

And he was gone.

***

The boats were almost here, four dark upturned mussel shells. Only four. It would not be enough for your village. They could be beaten.

You stood, waiting, as a well was lit with fire, as men and women gathered around you in a line, shields against forearms, a wall of wood and iron. 

The low thud of the drums out on the sea.

It was as it always was in these times. Your heart was a perfect, rounded stone. Rubbed smooth by the blood that coursed through you like a mud-river, slicking along your bones, grounding you.

This was what you knew, more than anything. More than words, more than stories, more than food. 

Bones, stones, blood.

***

‘Torstein.’ The boats are close, the shadows of the fighters on them tall shields. His friend is by Ragnar’s side straight away. ‘I need to you to do something.’

When he tells him, Torstein frowns. ‘But Ragnar – you need me to fight here.’

‘No. Do as I ask.’

Torstein nods and is gone, folded up into the night.

The rain courses down, making his cheeks slick, and he thinks of the blood that will follow. Night-boats, drums. This is revenge – he knows it in his bones.

‘Arrows!’ His shout brings bows into the air, shaftheads like eagle’s beaks. ‘Wait -’ His voice is not his own in these times, it comes from before the moon knew its power, from when the waters of Elivagar flowed. It is from him and is not from him -' _Loose_!’

An aerie of eagles, wings streamlined into their bodies, plummeting down on the fighters who come to attack them.

***

Sansa had grabbed her cloak and the hand of Hvitserk and followed Siggy and Aslaug and two men up to the top of the village, onto a thin trail that would follow a cleft in the hills.

She couldn’t help looking back, the village beginning to be lit up with fires in barrels, people running, the first sounds of fighting. Dull shouts and metal on metal, blending in with the lash of rain.

This was not like Blackwater. Blackwater had tall red walls, thicker than most of of these roofs put together. Blackwater had gates and a keep, and turrets for boiling oil. Tyrion’s sea-chain.

But the attackers were not Stannis and his men either. They did not come in warships, with cannon. The boats were small, and surely there could not be many men. 

She almost slipped as Hvitserk pulled on her hand. ‘I don’t want to go,’ he said.

‘Hvitserk, you must. We must all go together.’

He stood firm, another small, sharp tug. ‘But I want to fight.’ And there – Ragnar, distilled into something a third of his height, a boy with summer-meadow hair and skin as soft as a forest floor. 

Sansa crouched down to him. ‘I know you want to fight. But I need you to look after me. Can you do that?’

His hair was crowned in the glow of the village fires. ‘Alright,’ he said, and they ran a little to catch up with the others, who hadn’t seen them both stop.

Sansa’s skirt was already heavy with mud and they tripped over stones, seeing almost nothing, Orvar and Ralf’s torches far ahead. They had to be quicker.

Suddenly Siggy was there, Sigurd wriggling in her arms. Her face close. ‘Sansa, go back.’ Her whisper was urgent, almost vicious.

‘What? What do you mean? We can’t go back -'

Aslaug was behind her, holding Ivar in one arm and Ragnvald by the other hand. ‘They’re coming.’

Sansa’s heart flared. ‘What? Who are?’

‘There are men up there. They are coming down. _Go_.’

Siggy pushed her in the back, hard. Sansa didn’t understand. Of course there were men up there, Orvar and Ralf –

And she glanced behind her, up the hill, as they began to stumble their way back down, and saw candles in the grass far above them. Candles that were not candles but the torches of men, and the two torches of Orvar and Ralf the only ones to meet them. 

***

They came off the boats and into your arms like an embrace. You welcomed them with blood. With thrusts into sides, twists, and a blade in the skull. With a shove with your shield and a slice through the stomach. You welcomed them with elbows in jaws and hands in eyes and you spat their skin back at them.

Men and a few women, not much light on their faces, even before you got there. Sometimes you didn’t need mushrooms before a battle. The rage at them coming for you and your people was enough.

There was noise from behind you, a rabbit-frightened babble. You half-turned as you fought and saw small, slim shadows slipping back into the village. Women and children coming back down – why were they doing this? 

You saw why. More shadows, larger, circled. The attack was not just coming from the sea. It was coming from behind you. From the land. You shouted to your brother.

A man’s shield caught your ear and your head rang like an English church bell as you went down.

***

Rain like arrowheads as Ragnar fights. Rain like spearheads and eagles’ beaks. Mud slows everything, as if it is a practice fight. This is no practice. The men have flooded off the boats, thrashing through the water, a few taken by arrows, but not enough yet. There is more to do. 

Athelstan fights next to him, unpriest-like yells spraying out with the blood. An Englishman and a Northman in one skin. A man, a beard with red in it, a man who has the broad chin and dark eyes of Horik is there, amongst Ragnar’s warriors. It is as he thought. His brother come for revenge. It is almost surprising that it took him so long, that he waited the winter to bring his men here.

Rollo shouts to him, and Ragnar glances behind him to see dark shadows of men pouring into the village from the hills, and he curses Thor and he curses Týr and he curses the seer for warning him so late. They have come from behind, more fighters, many fighters it seems, the hills rolling them like boulders down their slopes.

More fighters than you have in this village. 

***

‘Split up,’ said Siggy with a hiss at the edge of the village, Sigurd clutched to her. 

Aslaug came up behind Sansa, her breath clouding. ‘No, Siggy -'

‘We must. It is not safe for them all to be together.’ Her voice was a gold-edged blade, urgent, powerful. ‘Aslaug. They are your sons. They want to kill them. We have to protect them.’

The torches on the hillside were opening out, rivulets of fire pouring down towards them. Sansa heard the tiniest gull-like mewl in Aslaug’s throat before she knelt down to Hvitserk and kissed the top of his head, her hand pressed to his ear. As she straightened, her look was anger and fear and ice-fire. _Protect him_ , it said. _Don’t let him die_.

Sansa nodded and clenched her son’s hand. ‘Come on.’ 

Already fighters had spread from the shoreline and into the village, doors ricocheting back off walls, shouts and yelps more like a dog’s than a person’s. She darted with Hvitserk under the dark shadow of an awning. No. It was too exposed.

Aslaug was already disappearing towards the back of the village, Ivar and Ragnvald with her. Siggy had Sigurd under a blanket and was moving like a shadow along the longhouse, perhaps aiming for one of the smaller houses.

Gods. Where should she go? In Blackwater she had been behind walls. Here she was in the battle, almost at its violent, pumping heart, and her own heart seemed outside herself, running away from her. 

She followed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _ **Gungir**_ , which Rollo sees Ragnar holding in his dream, is Odin’s magical spear.
> 
>  _ **Elivagar**_ , meaning ‘ice waves’, are the rivers that existed in Niflheim, the coldest realm, at the beginning of the world. They flowed fown the mountains to the plains of Ginnungagap, solidifying to frost and ice.
> 
>  _ **Týr**_ , who Ragnar curses along with Thor, the god of battle, is the god of one-to-one combat.


	23. Sansa And The Attackers (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [HeyYou](http://thefishdoctor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/green_betta_fish_3.jpg) again, for betaing the subtle shit out of these two chapters.

A pain in your chest. 

A ringing in your ear. 

A man about to bring his spear down into your skull. 

Enough. You rolled under his feet, gouged a chunk out of his calf, rose and began again. 

Your shield was your bone, wide and plated. Your axe was your bone, bladed. The sword you grabbed from the man whose head you had cleaved in two was your bone, tall and shrieking with light. You left it in another man, left him shrieking. 

You maimed and you killed, your head singing distant sea-songs. You killed with your shield-bone. Your axe-bone. Your sword-bone. 

Shield. Axe. Sword.

***

Sansa had pulled Hvitserk to the boathouse that sat on short stilts at the other end of the village. With difficulty – he kept turning to watch people fighting – she helped him crawl underneath, into mud and freezing, calf-deep water. No one would see them here, surely.

But she could see _them_. She could see the people of this village, soaked in firelight and rain. People that she had spent so much time with, sharing stories, eating and drinking, sewing, weaving, dancing – and now they were in a different sort of dance, but one they seemed to know well. She could hardly believe the ease with which they fought, the mobility and, more than anything else, the lack of fear.

 _Thorunn_. There was Thorunn, in her first proper battle. Sansa’s heart lunged with her as she moved, sidestepped, thrust. The force of a man’s sword in her shield making her stagger backwards, before she seemed to gain a wind-strength and push forwards, raising her arm, slashing at him. There were other women fighting too, shrieking with shields held high. Women - _fighting_.

Behind Thorunn, Rollo, taller than most, his long hair flying about like a broken raven’s wing as he flung himself at warriors. It did not surprise her to see him move the way he did, but she felt her ribs tighten to see him fight. 

And Bjørn – _Bjørn_ , so gentle and caring, was shot through with iron and stone, turning quickly, jumping onto the back of a man, hacking into the shield of another. Slicing his neck, a head half-severing. 

Gods, where was Athelstan? 

‘I’m cold,’ whispered Hvitserk. 

‘I know,’ she said. _But better to be cold than de_ -

 _There_. At the further end of the bay, past the boathouse, with two men upon him. Swords and axes and he looked so small and oh gods, _gods_ , Athelstan was going to die and _pray to the Warrior and pray to Thor and pray to Jesus oh gods, please don’t let him_ -

***

Ragnar looks around for his kin. In the rain, he can still see their shapes, as familiar as his own palms, his own heartbeat. Bjørn, fighting three men. Somehow he knows that his son does not need help. Rollo, in his first fight since his leg, hungry for meat. Bear-roars, men falling around him. As soon as he brings down one, he looks for another. Others – was that Gunnar at the end of the bay? The rain was making him as blind as the seer. Somewhere, his sons tucked away, hidden in the trees he hoped, hidden in the bushes, nestled under their roots like rodents. His wife –

He swears at the rain, at Freyr for making it so. He is blind as the seer but without the gods.

No. It is not Gunnar, there along the curve of sand, with two men fighting him, both bigger. It is Athelstan.

Ragnar barrels through bodies, catching his axe in one man’s ribs to get him out of the way, dragging himself back to pull it out. He keeps running as Athelstan falls to one knee, a sword up near his throat. 

One man sees him coming and throws a spear and Ragnar turns to the side as he runs, feels it sparrowhawk-streak past him, holds his arm up, lunges, the force of his anger as good as his axe. He barges into the shoulder of the other man, kicks him in the jaw, teeth breaking, another kick, nose breaking, another kick, neck breaking.

Athelstan is on the ground, his arm hanging loose. His face is blood and sand.

Ragnar drops to his knees. ‘Athelstan,’ he says. 

Athelstan gives one cough, a cough that sounds like it may have parts of his lungs, or heart, or stomach in it. 

The village fights on. Ragnar finds his friend’s hand, squeezes it. ‘I will come back,’ he says. ‘Pray to your god.’ He holds his cheeks, kisses him once on the forehead.

***

 _There are too many men_.

In your head, you heard this small voice speak. _There are too many_. You ignored it, kept cutting, slamming your shield into them, slicing. Blood and rain on your face. Blood washing the rain off. Rain washing the blood off.

People of your village were tumbling, women yanked out of their hiding-places. You strode towards two men who were pulling a girl out of the pigbarn. Too late. A flash of blood from her throat as she fell. You killed them both and their squeals mixed with the pigs.

Your nephew was nowhere to be seen. Ragnar was charging back towards the village.

Another came. A fist in your jaw. Another. A shield into your spine, making you fall. The rain gluing the leather of your jerkin to your skin, your limbs heavy. There were too many men. You could not kill them all. 

A strangled sound, like the sky breaking. A horn.

***

The long, curving cry of it, like Heimdall and his Gjallahorn. Ragnar looks up.

Lights come pouring from the trees to the side of the village, from around the bay, like fast-rushing fireflies. They come in a thin line that splits and becomes two, and the noise comes with them, fly-buzzes becoming roars as more fighters pelt down into the village, into the fray.

This time it is his warriors.

Floki has come. He has come with Lagertha’s boat-builders and they flood among them all. Ragnar praises Thor and Týr and the seer for his storm-warning, and for helping him plan caution, though four boats alone would not have needed it. For Torstein and his swift feet.

Horik’s brother is fighting towards Ragnar, slow and steady, and men he knows go down around his blade, as if long grasses. A shieldmaiden, a friend of Thorunn’s, runs at him and a swipe is enough for her to crumple at his feet.

Rage in him like roiling fire, like Muspelheim. Ragnar storms towards him. He is thunder and lightning. The fighters peel back like clouds.

***

Athelstan was lying still, the rain blurring him into the bay, not much more than stones and waves in the darkness. Sansa choked a sob. _Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead_. She wanted to run from her hiding-place, to dash over the sand to him. But Hvitserk was here, clutching her more tightly now, shivering knee-deep in the water. She couldn’t leave him. And she couldn’t get caught in the fray, which was louder and more vicious than ever.

She would never have imagined Floki, so fleet-voiced, as wisped as a tendril of smoke, such a warrior. He stood, tall and wild and black-eyed, twirling his axe over his head as if it were a ribbon before smashing it down into the chest of a man. He seemed to have conjured up a whole legion to fight with him, and Hvitserk whispered _look!_ as they began to overpower the attackers.

Floki and Thorunn and Bjørn and Ragnar – _oh gods_ \- 

***

Horik’s brother’s sword is great, and it rises above Ragnar’s head. 

‘This is for my brother,’ he says, and his voice is noble, full of thin stone. 

There is no point telling him that Horik wanted to kill his family, to kill them all. This man has a cold blood-rage in his eyes, the kind that only the death of a brother can forge.

Ragnar meets sword with axe and feels the ox-weight of the blade along his shoulder, a blue light of pain. Horik’s brother comes at him again and the sword almost takes his ear off. He is powerful. Ragnar turns, boulders into him, aims his axe and at the same time the man thrusts sideways, a strange move, and his arm splits in two. Ragnar loses his balance and falls hip-first into the mud and looks up to see his opponent drop to his knees, his other arm sliced away at the shoulder and Rollo is there, his shirt heavy with blood, his breath heaving, Fenrir, the killer of the brothers of kings.

***

It was won. Floki and the boat-builders had been like ships riding fast-incoming waves. Sansa and Hvitserk watched as the attackers began to crumble. There was Bjørn again, throwing a spear with an angry cry into a man who stood almost right in front of him, taking it out and doing it again before falling to his knees.

‘Your leader is dead!’ It was Ragnar, shouting in his warrior-voice, and slowly the duos and trios of fighters stopped, turned towards the voice. There he was, with Rollo just behind him, limping into the centre of the village. Rollo was alive. ‘Stop now and we may give you mercy.’

The sounds began to dissolve into the rain, metal on wood on metal, shouts and cries, and bubbling up from underneath them came cries from the wounded, spitting, and the sound of Thorunn headbutting a man with a valkyrie shriek. And Sansa’s own breath, pebbled, hard, frantic. It was safe to move.

Her legs had cramped from crouching down and she fell forward into the water as she tried to get out from underneath the boathouse. This time it was Hvitserk who went to her aid, scrambling out on his hands and knees in the water, and holding his small arm back out to her.

***

Your nephew was on his back, his trousers slashed at the hip. A sheet of blood washed over his face like water. ‘I’m sorry, uncle,’ he said.

‘What do you have to be sorry for?’ you said, as Thorunn dashed to his side.

He looked at her. ‘I got hit.’

His little shieldmaiden, hair dipped in blood, let out a small whimper. 

You pushed the material of his breeches away, put your hands on the wound. Blood slow-spilling from a cut on his thigh, covering your wrist.

‘He’ll be alright,’ you said to her as you heard ‘Father!’ and saw Hvitserk come running up to your brother.

Ragnar crashed to his knees, crushed his son to him. The _raf refr_ behind him. Her dress dark.

You leapt up, your head still clanging loudly from that earlier shield hit. ‘Are you hurt?’ You put a hand on her elbow. 

She shook her head, looking rushed, panicked. ‘Are you?’ 

‘Nothing that will see me in Valhalla too early.’

And she had turned and was running along the bay, away from you, to a body far down the beach.

Ragnar mumbled something into Hvitserk’s hair.

‘What, brother?’

‘Where are my sons,’ he said more loudly, in a voice like a torn tree, standing up. ‘Where are my sons?’

***

Athelstan’s face was blotched with mud. Cold waves lapping at his side. Blood lapping at his neck.

Sansa wiped the dark mess from his eyes. They didn’t open.

‘Athelstan?’ she whispered.

***

Ragnar shouts his wife’s name, his sons’ names, Hvitserk hoisted into his arms.

‘Ragnar.’ Floki is at his ear. ‘What shall we do with the survivors?’ 

‘I do not care. Keep them. Kill them.’ He shouts again.

Ragnvald is coming towards him, covered in hay. He lowers Hvitserk, checks his other son for wounds, and there are none. Aslaug is there. Ivar. Her face pale, her skin untouched. He burrows his nose in her neck.

‘Where is Sigurd?’ she says in his ear, her voice strung tight with fear.

‘We will find him,’ he says, and leaves them, running from doorway to doorway, shouting his name, thinking of slayed dragons, slayed sons.

***

‘Brother.’

Blood was pouring from a cut on your chest. You picked at it, trying to get the cloth from your shirt out of it, your head still filled with mud. Everything sounded strange, as if underwater. ‘What?’

Your brother was carrying his son, the second smallest. His blanket was drenched red. You could not see the boy’s face.

You stood. ‘Ragnar. I am sorry.’

He glanced down at Sigurd. ‘No.’ He looked up at you again. ‘It is I who am sorry.’ His eyes were strange, watered, drunken. His voice small and grave. You looked at him blankly.

And then you knew. Siggy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _ **Freyr**_ , whom Ragnar curses, is god of rain and sunshine among many other things.
> 
>  _ **Heimdall**_ has a long horn called _**Gjallarhorn**_ at the onset of Ragnarok.
> 
>  _ **Muspelheim**_ is the fire realm.
> 
> Ragnar refers to Rollo as _**Fenrir**_ because of the story ‘The Binding of Fenrir’, in which the wolf Fenrir rips the hand of Tyr from his arm.


	24. Sansa And Siggy

The paths were like plagued, pockmarked skin. Churned brown and red. Red puddles that Sansa had thought last night were the reflections of fire, but now saw that they were not. They were puddles of blood. The hem of her dress was bordered with it like a dye and dragged heavily as she ghosted through the village, still unable to sleep.

Athelstan was alive.

He had a deep wound to his throat, and his mouth, so normally full of words, could only deliver guttering punctuation, the sound of a shallow stream in summer. Sansa had stuffed material into the well of his neck and shoulder only to see it immediately flower red. 

His arm had a long slice along it, a gleam of bone showing at the wrist. His face was a stamped-down mud path. The one eye he could open was startlingly bright.

She stayed at his side, helping a slave who knew healing ways staunch the blood, wash his wounds, cauterise. His skin hissed as the hot knife scalded him and he made a small, similar sound through his teeth. She sat with him all night, telling him in their words, in her words, in the few she knew of his own language, that he would be alright. It never occurred to her to sing. Singing would not help here.

Athelstan was alive. But Siggy was not. Perhaps twenty fighters from the village had been killed, and free and slave women on top of that. Five children too, and the wails of their mothers had soared up into a dawn the colour of chicken grease.

Ragnar’s children all lived. Aslaug had hidden underneath bales of hay in a sheep barn with Ivar and Ragnvald, and they were all still covered in pale yellow feathers like fledglings. Siggy had gone to a slave-dwelling with Sigurd, and placed him in a cradle. She must have refused to move as the attackers came in, by the cuts cross-stitching her hands, belly and face. But her fight - Sansa could only imagine a wounded lioness - had distracted them and they had not thought to look behind her, at the small, silent boy now covered in his protector’s blood.

Rollo had barged into the slave house and emerged again more slowly, as if he had just taken a blade to the ribs. Ragnar had put his hand on his arm, and his brother had flung it off and stalked up to one of the men who knelt with Floki’s axe poised at his head. Rollo had grabbed the axe, swung it at the prisoner’s cheek and opened his face up, before sinking down into the mud himself. 

She had not seen him since.

***

Too many men have been killed. More of Horik’s brother’s than his, some of Lagertha's village, enough to make a hole in the numbers for the summer raids.

They came for his village. For his sons.

Ragnar sits, watching his brother grow more drunk, feeling his own rage burn low and quiet, black embers flaring blood-orange each time he thinks of an arrow going near his son, of a blade going into Bjørn's skin.

'I can no longer be called Bjørn Ironside, father,' his son had said on the bed, Thorunn next to him, her lip fat and bloody. 

'You can and you will,' Ragnar had said in a voice that accepted no protest. 'You killed many men. Protected the village. I am proud to call you my firstborn son.'

Now he watches Rollo drink his fifth cup of ale in a long gulp. 'Siggy is with Frejya in Folkvang,' Ragnar tells him quietly, though he is not sure his brother hears him well. His cheek and jaw have swollen from a strike he took from a shield, his ear bloody. 'She died a noble death. She died protecting my son. I pledge to Forseti and to Magni that he will do great things in her memory. I vow that he will honour her sacrifice.'

Siggy. She was always happy to have one of his sons in her arms or holding onto her hand as she led them through the longhouse. She did everything she could to stay alive from the moment he killed her husband, becoming a servant, attaching herself to your brother, trying to make love grow there. He is not sure if it ever did.

He imagines her in Valhalla too, in her best dress for Odin, giving him proud, big eyes, and tries not to smile. She will talk Freyja out of her necklace. She will make Bragi forget his tongue. She will do well in Hel.

'You know what I want,' Rollo says, slamming his cup down. His eyes are like broken cliffs. 'Revenge.'

Ragnar nods grimly. In this, for once, they agree.

***

The rain had finally stopped. With its end came the hum of death and everything that came out of a person when they were slain. Northman words, words that came more easily to Sansa now – piss, vomit, shit. Kattegat had gathered up its own dead but not yet the corpses of the attackers. Some still lay, twisted as tree roots and melting into the mud, blood-blackened faces frozen mid-terror at their lives being ripped out of this world like the pages of a book. 

Sansa saw Rollo stumble out of the longhouse, a cupful of ale slipping from his grasp, most of it surely tipping into the mud. Ragnar was at the door, watching him.

His eyes slid over to hers, and after a moment of watching her, he pushed himself off the frame of the door and limped over to her. His face was dotted with dark, dried blood, the specklings of a bird’s egg, making his eyes burn even more fiercely blue than ever.

‘Princess. We have you to thank.’

She was so tired. ‘For what?’

‘For being our _Fjallar_.’ He put a hand out to her hair, ran his fingers through it, examining it as if it were a map. She didn’t dare move away from him. ‘Our warning.’

‘How did you know to bring the others? Floki?’

‘The seer.’ He gave a small tip of his head upwards, to the bleached-bone sky. ‘The gods.’ He let her hair go with the merest of sighs. ‘And thank you for keeping my son safe.’

She tried to smile. ‘I think he kept _me_ safe. He is very brave.’ An involuntary shiver came, the memory of the men falling into the mud, some that she had broken bread with. A girl who was Thorunn’s friend, her hair always plaited tightly and festooned with thin braids, slain by an axe in her breast. ‘Will – will Rollo be alright?’

Ragnar’s eyes dulled. A small smile that was not a smile. ‘We will see.’

***

Dust like wind-blown grains of sand. A smell that was the end of rain and the end of lives.

In the room of the dead, Siggy’s body lay on a table a little apart from the others. She had been wrapped in white cloth. You knew her shape without seeing her face.

You peeled back the cloth. Her skin had been cleaned. Deep red slashes across her belly, as if her skin had been nothing but cloth. A long, perfectly straight line across her face, from her jaw to her nose. That smell – despite the burning sage in the room of the dead. Something deep and rotting. 

Her eyes had been closed. You leant your elbows on the table and carefully put your thumb on her lashes. Taking a deep breath, you opened a lid and there was a green and gold stone that was not Siggy and you staggered backwards over a child’s body, almost crushing it, getting up again, finding daylight.

***

Sansa stood outside the door, holding her breath. The last time she had been in here she was trying to give Siggy her embroidered gift as thanks.

Her stomach ached with hunger and exhaustion. She hadn’t been able to eat anything, watching over Athelstan, seeing him shudder as he woke from dreams of pain into a daylight of pain. He kept trying to smile, before violent leaf-trembles made them disappear again.

But she hadn’t lost him. She looked at her own fist, the mud streaked dry on her fingers, and knocked.

There was no answer.

Another knock, louder. Nothing but the sound of the sea and two children running at the far end of the bay, as if the battle had never happened. Sansa tentatively pushed the door. It swung open.

Rollo was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his head hanging down, face concealed by matted, dark hair. She took two steps and as quick as the changing wind he had stood up, an axe in his hand, a rush of blood-streaked fury, before seeing that it was her. 

The bladed anger in his eyes turned to dull, worn metal. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, lowering his arm.

‘I’m – I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.’

‘What?’ He gestured faintly towards the side of his head, his voice thick as clay. ‘I can’t hear.’ His axe was brown, clotted.

She went closer to him as he sat down again. 'I'm sorry.' Her voice sounded too bell-bright in the thick silence of the room.

His eyes were bruised. One side of his beard patched with blood. 'What do you have to be sorry for?' Near-impatience in his voice.

She swallowed. 'I mean - I am sorry for you. For what you are - going through.' 

His look was almost accusing. 'You don't know anything.' He spoke through a surge of angry breath before his head fell forwards again. His shirt hung open at the neck, a long horizontal cut visible across his chest that hadn’t been tended to.

'I know how it feels to lose someone you -'

'What?' His words seemed to stick in his teeth. 'I what?'

Sansa couldn't turn back. She had already implied it. He was daring her to finish it. 'To lose someone you love,' she said, very quietly, suddenly unsure of everything, listening to her words unravel like loose loom-wool.

There was a silence. The fire spat. Somewhere, a man being tended to groaned.

'Go.' He didn't call her by her nickname. 

She felt rooted to the spot.

His shoulders rose, a reluctant, furious breath. He looked up. 'Go,' he said, his eyes darkly locked on hers before he turned to face the wall. 'Go back to your priest.'

***

You stayed looking at the fire until darkness hung in front of your eyes again, until the fire twisted and shrivelled and became ashes.

Then you could see nothing but her skin, the colour of smoked cheese and honey.

Nothing but her tattoo, animal-dark along her spine.

Nothing but her eyes, ever rueful, impatient, fuckable.

Your grief was strange and thick. It was mixed with guilt and darkness, the long darkness of Niflheim.

Guilt that you were not better to her. That you did not marry her. Give her children. That you did not push her away long ago so that she might have found someone who wanted what she did, who could have given her more. Guilt for looking at the little - the _raf_ \- the princess -

Guilt that you did not, in your heart, ever love her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  Norse Mythology School   
>  **
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  _ **Forseti**_ – god of peace, justice, truth
> 
>  _ **Magni**_ – god of strength
> 
>  _ **Bragi**_ is known for his wisdom and most of all for fluency of speech and skilled with words. 
> 
> A beautiful red rooster _**Fjallar**_ , whose name means the 'All knower', will warn all the giants that the beginning of Ragnarok has begun.


	25. Sansa And The Funeral

‘You look tired.’ Lagertha has returned to Kattegat upon hearing of the attack. 

Ragnar has woken up in the dark heart of the last three nights thinking his children are being stabbed in their beds. ‘I am just getting old.’ He sneaks a look at her.

She smiles a little and does not contradict him. He remembers when they first met, and her clotted cream cheeks, her wildcat-screams when they had sex. So long ago. He feels like he has moved mountains since then.

‘I am sorry for the loss of your men,’ he says.

‘I would have done the same.’ She pours them both another cup of ale, sits calmly, with her legs apart like a man’s. ‘Do you think it will delay our plans?’

 _Our plans_. He supposes that it is alright to let her think this. She is helping him with boat-building. Perhaps they should be equal. In battle, if not in marriage.

‘Floki still expects to have one boat ready for our raid to England in a month’s time,’ he says. ‘We will fit three longships’ worth of raiders on there. We can follow with our own longships.’ As well as his own, he now has the four longships of Horik’s brother. He has lost men but gained boats.

Lagertha drinks her ale, her neck tipping up, the shape of a curved bow. ‘I am so sad to hear of Siggy.’ Her mountain forget-me-not eyes darken. ‘She was always good to me. She never got over losing her children, you know.’

Ragnar nods. Siggy had never spoken of it, but he knew well enough from the way she had cared for his own. ‘We will give her every honour.’ 

‘How is Rollo?’ There’s a trace of flint in her voice that she does not want him to hear.

‘He is as you would expect. Silent, except to talk to Víðarr. Angry. Looking for blood.’

She sits up straighter and Ragnar sees the woman she has become, true as a birch, Freyja to Aslaug’s Frigg. ‘We have all lost men and women. We will raze their village to the ground.’

***

The night was dry and the air smelt warm and dark-green, laced with the herbs scenting the bodies of the dead. 

The attackers’ corpses had not been treated with such dignity. Ragnar ordered them to be piled onto their own longships, and Floki and Torstein sailed them out past the line of the bay to roll them overboard. Their smell had been the worst kind, a pungency that almost hurt, clothes and limbs fused with blood and excrement. There were a dozen or so prisoners captive in a sheep barn. Ragnar hadn’t executed them, at least not yet. 

All day, pyres had been built on the beach, with everyone from the village helping. The dead – including Orvar and Ralf, who had led Sansa and the others up the hill, and Thorunn’s friend, had all been dressed in their finest clothes, and lain there.

Now the uppermost trunks had been lit and the low, white-gold fires became wings, nests of young flame-birds starting to learn their flight. The heat was fierce. Sansa had to step further away into the shadows, where Thorunn found her arm. 

Siggy did not have a pyre on the beach. She was borne aloft on an old ornate door, through the people and down the boardwalk to her death-bed on one of the village’s own longships. Sansa had been surprised that it would be used when it could take so many sailors across the sea, but Lagertha had told her quietly that they had at least gained ships through this battle.

The five children who had been killed were placed around her on lower pyres, one of them a slave-girl. Thorunn told her that they would go with Siggy into the next world, which caused Sansa's throat to tighten. She had always looked so comfortable with children. The distress of the parents was sewn tight in their throats, the low, keening cries of distant geese.

As the dusk drew in, a hen and a cock were sacrificed, their garbled yells startlingly loud, their blood spilling into a small wooden bowl. A horse had been run ragged at the end of the village until it sweated before being cut up, its meat placed in bloody chunks in a large sackcloth and lowered into the boat.

Those who knew her best went to the ship to lay gifts. Aslaug carried a carved wooden spoon, Lagertha cloth-making tools and Ragnar shifted from his place leaning against the sturdy pole of the boardwalk to lay a thick, pure-white fur by her head. Sansa remembered the gift she had made her many months ago – the small embroidered cloth that she had given instead to Athelstan. If Siggy hadn’t wanted it then, she wouldn’t want it now. Instead, she helped Thorunn with a folded dark-blue cloak and stepped back again.

There was a strange pause. Heavy, seeded. Three gulls were very high up, wheeling, as if a child was turning them with strings. Sansa realised that there was one person who hadn’t yet approached Siggy’s body. Rollo.

***

The pyre was shaped like a dragon’s nose.

Siggy was a dragon, in her own way. Different colours depending on how she turned in the light. Her fire-breath on your skin. Glitter-eyes.

She lay dressed in a green wool gown with golden thread, and a deep-red cloak – all her colours, warm blood and envy and the gleam of jewels. 

There was a sickness in your gut, in your throat, as you walked up the boardwalk. Grief and bitterness and guilt like curdled blood. You sensed Sansa near you, a fleeting glimpse of her winter-skin, a smell of her maybe.

The boat rocked as you climbed down into it. The only boat you had ever boarded which was not taking you to raid and kill and discover new lands. This one was for her, heading for Valhalla or Folkvang – whatever the gods decided. 

She looked paler than you had ever seen her, though you knew that the women had rubbed wood-ash onto her skin. She looked like she would open her eyes at any moment and say your name in that way of hers, part-lover, part-mother, part-enemy. But you knew she would not. Deep down, you prayed that she would not.

Once, you had given her a gold and copper brooch – years ago, when you were first trying to get her into your bed, when her daughter was still alive. She had turned it in the candlelight and looked over as if trying to decide if she should eat you or stab you. You placed it in her fingers now, fingers that were snow-heavy twigs, that had the weight of the dead in them.

On the boardwalk, a pathway had been made, and a flaming torch waited for you at the far end. You walked past everyone, past your brother, past Lagertha and Sansa, kept walking, past the torch, back to your house.

***

‘I will take it.’ Lagertha picks up the torch and walks to the boat, her cloak sweeping behind her like a night-dark sea. She looks down at her friend for a moment, the torch like a mane of hair in the wind, like the princess’s hair, before throwing it onto the boat. 

The wind rises.

Aslaug joins her and adds another. Two women, two flames. Three, if Ragnar includes Siggy. Some of his men loosen the ropes, push the boat off, and they sail, Siggy and the dead children of the village, towards their gods. His someday.

The flames lift. They embrace Siggy, who saved his son, and there is a spray like ghosts on the water, a whirl of ghosts at a feast-dance. 

***

‘Brother.’

You did not wait seven days to have funeral ale. You drank every night and every day. Ale thinning your blood. It didn’t help. Every time you woke up she was still there. ‘What?’

Your brother closed the door softly behind him and sat down next to you. Always so bloody quiet, always. ‘It is time to stop drinking.’

You wiped your mouth. ‘Maybe I don’t want to stop drinking.’

‘You are not so much use to me this way.’ 

You looked at him sharply. Use to _him_. 

Ragnar’s eyes softened and he leant forward. ‘We need to ready ourselves. We have enough men, with Lagertha’s reinforcements. We can use their ships as well as ours. We will get our revenge.’ He leant back towards the bucket nearest him, until he saw the vomit in it. Sighing, he stood up, found another bucket and poured you a cup of water. ‘And then to England. And further.’

Always looking forward, no matter how many bodies lay at his feet. You took the cup. Drank. 

His nose crinkled like a cabbage leaf. ‘You smell like goat, brother.’

***

For a moment Sansa was worried that Rollo was trying to kill himself, though there were probably better ways to do it than drowning yourself head-first in an animal’s watering hole.

She had run up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He had flung himself upwards, arm flailing, freezing water drenching the front of her dress. His face was like an ice floe. His ears red.

‘Oh,’ she said, glancing down at the dark patches on her skirts.

He swiped a hand over his face and looked at her. Eyes bruised.

Sansa took a deep breath. ‘How are you?’ He had been avoiding her. Well, avoiding everyone. She had walked past his house again, many times, but never dared go in. _Go back to your priest_ , he had said.

‘How do you think?’ he said, water droplets in his beard. 

‘I don’t know.’

‘You said you did. You said you did know how I felt.’ He leant close to her, his voice lowering, bitter as wet bark. ‘No one knows. No one knows what we were to each other. What – we were not.’ His eyes clouded and he lurched slightly, before doubling over and retching.

Sansa hadn’t understood, but she thought that she was beginning to. That perhaps it hadn’t been love, exactly, that had kept Rollo and Siggy together, but something more dutiful, routine even. He looked so wounded. Shivering like an injured rabbit.

She crouched down next to him and put her hand on his shoulder, feeling slightly outside herself. ‘I think – maybe you need to rest.’ His breath smelt acrid.

He stilled under her palm. ‘You know what will make me feel better?’ His head didn’t move, but his eyes slid to hers, a little more dark, a little more alive. Her stomach plunged into ice and the heat of a pyre all at once. He leant a little closer and she could see the gooseflesh on his neck. A cut on his bottom lip. ‘Killing people.’

***

Ragnar visits Athelstan. The princess is again at his side, talking quietly to him, though she straightens when he enters. 

Your friend’s face blooms with lichen and autumn moss. 

‘You are not as pretty as you were, Athelstan.’

Sansa looks a little shocked. 

‘You think otherwise, princess?’

She glances at Athelstan and back to him, her mouth moving like a minnow’s. 

‘As if I do not know what goes on between you two,’ Ragnar says, and her own face blooms also. ‘How does he do?’ he says, more seriously.

‘Well.’ Her voice is as soft as the light in here. ‘The healing woman says he will recover.’

He sits down, puts an arm on Athelstan’s. ‘You are very strong. For a Christian.’ 

Athelstan swallows and gives a smile that seems to take all of his strength. A smile that is just him, mild as summer ale, but frothed with pain.

Ragnar looks at Sansa. ‘You know we will be going soon to take our revenge.’

She nods, her eyes wide summer skies.

‘Take care of this one. He is as important to me as you are.’

A small mouse-breath. ‘I will.’ 

He is leaving enough men. Floki is to stay in the village until they return. But still, he leans over Athelstan towards her, towards his Fjallar. ‘Take care of my children.’

She holds his gaze more firmly, before nodding. ‘I will.’

There is something in this girl. A strong sea-pull in her, or the strength of something like her wolf-pet. Ragnar feels this, more than ever. The seer knows it, the gods know it, and he knows it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> **  
> Norse Culture Notes  
>   
> 
> Though the ship burials were usually saved for leaders, I decided that Ragnar chose to give Siggy the highest honour for saving his son. And because he had spare ships. 
> 
> After seven days, funeral ale is drunk. But Rollo starts early.
> 
> **  
> **  
> Norse Mythology School  
>   
> 
>  _ **Víðarr**_ is a god of the forest, vengeance and silence.


	26. Sansa And The Slaves

You sat at the front of the boat and the sea made you feel better. Salt and air whistling through your bones. Siggy did not seem to be with you here. You could let your mind roam to the far horizon, think of killing, of blood-spray, of piles of clean bones. Good things.

***

‘Does it hurt?’

'It does. I've had worse.' Athelstan had begun to talk properly. His voice was a jagged whisper, but it was there, and some colour had returned to his cheeks. Pale winter roses rather than yellowing ice.

‘Matilde says you will be able to use your arm again,’ said Sansa.

He looked rueful and whispered something else. She leant her ear towards his mouth. ‘Not soon enough. Not well.’ His fingers curled slowly like reeds in near-still water. ‘I’ll have to start learning to write with my left hand.’ A small, effortful smile. ‘The Devil’s hand.’

Sansa folded her forearms on his upper leg and rested her head on them. It had been several days since Ragnar and Rollo, Lagertha and the others had left in their longships to take their revenge on King Horik’s brother’s village. Everything had been quiet, apart from a small mutiny of prisoners that had quickly turned to bloodshed and one man losing an arm. Floki had made a promise about making them into a flock of something called blood eagles if anyone else tried to escape. The men had not attempted anything since.

She turned to look at Athelstan, her head still on his thigh. 'What is it like? To fight?'

He swallowed and the sound was dry, a hen’s feet on stone. ‘It feels – I don’t know. Important.’

Thorunn had fought so bravely. She had shrieked and yelled and cut at men, diving and ducking. Sansa had tried to ask her what it had been like but she had not wanted to speak of it, pushing her away by the shoulder. 

She tucked her finger into his warm palm. 'What was it like to kill your first man?'

He thought for some time before answering. 'It is not - you are not yourself. When you make that final choice, to lift your blade and put it in a man - or a woman - you have to become someone else.' 

She saw Rollo again, hurling himself into men as if they were air, moving as if he was water. 

'Even this battle - I can hardly remember it. It's like a dream. Like it didn't happen.' Athelstan looked at his arm and gestured to his neck with his good hand. 'This reminds me that it was not.'

 _Death reminds you also_ , she thought, and saw Siggy's body burning again.

Athelstan’s eyelids looked gluey, his breath slowing. His energy was returning, but only in bursts. 

She leant over him and spoke gently. ‘Don’t stay awake for me.’

A glimpse of glitterblue as his blinking grew heavier. ‘I like looking at you.’ 

‘I’ll be here when you wake up.’ She kissed him lightly. Dry lips, like the bark he wrote on. ‘Go to sleep.’

***

Somewhere below him on the hill, there is a cry that might be a bird or might be a man. Ragnar had chased two fleeing fighters up away from the village, plunged his axe into one, spun and smashed his shield into the jaw of the other, making a hole where teeth had been. He had had to kill these two. Another small cry. He hopes it is not any of his people. 

Back down in the village that was once King Horik’s, your brother stands over three men on their knees. A woman is sobbing, long and low, holding the hand of a boy with dirty blonde hair.

‘Tell me again why we are not killing them all?’ Rollo has a long swipe of bright red blood down one side of his face and deep crimson handprints on his tunic. He is breathing heavily.

Ragnar examines his nails, looks at the sky, smiles at his brother. ‘What good would that do anyone?’

Some of Lagertha’s shieldmaidens have the women, children and the older villagers in the longhouse. Lagertha herself has a cut on her arm as she stands with her sword at a man’s throat. She understands Ragnar’s look and shakes her head. She is not badly hurt.

King Horik’s brother did not leave many fighting men behind when he came to attack Kattegat. It was an easy battle and they surrendered quickly.

Your brother’s face is a dark cave. ‘You did not think twice about killing Jarl Borg’s men. You did not keep them as slaves.’

‘We did not need them then.’

‘We do not need them now.’

Ragnar had already explained to him on the sea-journey that he wanted to bring the villagers back to Kattegat alive to help Floki. He had thought on it, and revenge tired him. The more workers they had, the quicker the boats would be built. Lagertha’s eyes had turned to cold metal when he had told her of his plans, but she had nodded. Rollo had spat into the water and not spoken to him until they had gone ashore again.

Now he steps closer to Rollo, so that only he can hear. ‘Brother. The way to honour her is to do great things.’ Your brother’s shoulders drop. ‘Like she always wanted you to do. We will go to West-er-os. We will discover a great land. Perhaps you will rule some of it.’

***

‘ _Fight_!’

Thorunn had a look in her eye like she might kill someone. And the only person standing in front of her was Sansa.

‘Wait -’ Too late. A shield came barging into her. Sansa sidestepped, her own shield up, but the force of Thorunn coming at her was enough to make her stumble and nearly fall. She was getting better, but not enough for her friend.

‘ _Again_.’ Each word was like a diving kestrel. 

Their shields thudded together, a flash of pain forking along Sansa’s elbow. She looked at the long splinter on the edge of her shield and lowered it. ‘Thorunn. He’ll be fine.’

Thorunn stopped mid-charge as if she had been stilled by a maegi. Her eyes turned from fire to embers and the point of her sword tipped down to the mud. ‘I hate that he is hurt.’ A furious, stone-whittled breath. ‘It makes me want to kill.’ She stabbed the ground in small, vicious movements.

Sansa had never seen girls fight as they had done in the battle. Back in Westeros, she would have thought it unladylike. Now she wanted to be like them. 

Bjørn had had some fever with the bloodloss from his thigh and was still mostly bed-ridden. Sansa had visited him often, helping Thorunn re-dress his wounds, telling him her own stories, and stories of her family, which he seemed to like hearing, especially of King Torhenn and his march south to fight the Tagaryens. They were beginning to seem almost like only stories to her too now, things that had never been real, only fables on fading paper.

Thorunn had left a trail of little bird-prints in the mud with her sword, seemingly livid at showing that she was upset. She looked at Sansa with reddening eyes, before noticing how she cradled her elbow. ‘I’m sorry, Sansa. Are you hurt?’

Sansa smiled, thinking that one day she would be like Thorunn and slash bird-print marks all over Cersei and Tywin Lannister. ‘I’ve had worse.’ 

***

Your brother stood at the prow, looking bored as the boat rose high, the sea trying to become mountains. As if the storm was nothing but a rumble in his stomach.

The captured villagers huddled together, lashed by ropes to each other and to the masts. There was no protest, though one or two of the younger women gave you looks that could have flayed your balls.

It hurt to know that Ragnar was right. Right to bring these people back, to make them work. It sat like a fish-bone in your throat.

The sea bumped the boat about, as if whales were looking for air, or Rán, hungry for sailors to pull under. You once thought that the _raf refr_ was Rán. You did not think she was now, not really. Your brother had spoken of a strange magic in her but you didn’t see it. She was a girl. A keen-eyed, caring girl with autumn-leaf hair, who had put her hand on your shoulder when you had doused your head in the sheep-trough. Who Siggy had been right to be jealous of.

You tightened your grip on the mast rope and watched the flint-sparks in the beaten-iron sky.

***

‘I have brought you some presents,’ Ragnar says as he steps onto the boardwalk. Floki looks past him at the boats with his arms crossed, eyebrows coiled.

Behind Ragnar, the villagers are being dragged to their feet. Rollo kicks the legs of those who do not move fast enough.

Ragnar sees Aslaug waiting at the end of the boardwalk, as sure as sunset. He leans close to Floki’s ear as he passes. ‘West-er-os is not lost yet, my friend.’

Floki’s face lifts. Darkness into delight.

***

Sansa did not see a single face missing. Ragnar looked as if he’d just been for a summertime stroll, approaching Alsaug with that almost mockingly-reverent manner of his, kissing her jaw. Lagertha immediately went with Thorunn to visit her son. Rollo was spitting something onto the ground, looking broader and taller than ever, and with no visible wounds. She felt a strange little wash of relief.

Ragnar called a meeting in the longhouse. ‘We have new slaves. They will help Floki with the boats and replace those we have lost here in Kattegat. Our men and women and children.’ He swept his eyes over the room. ‘The brother of King Horik wanted to kill us all, but instead we will use his people to make us stronger.’

The prisoners looked terrified, many of them young or quite elderly, and mothers and children. Their eyes drew circles around the room as voices rose around them, a woody murmur. As Ragnar neared Sansa, she couldn’t help stare at him.

He almost passed her, his sleeve brushing hers, before he stopped, took a step back and looked at her. ‘What?’ It was a quiet, smiling challenge.

She pressed her lips together and looked at the post she was leaning on. 

‘If something bothers you, Princess, you should speak it aloud.’

There had always been slaves here. Cooking and waiting, working with the animals, helping with the wounded. But seeing the fear of these new prisoners made her see how wrong it was. She made herself look at him. ‘I thought you were good people.’ 

His eyes were lit kindling. ‘We are good people.’

‘Good people don’t have slaves.’ 

The sides of his head were so thick with tattoos that they were almost black. The lines under his eyes sharp and rising like blades. ‘Did you not have people to serve you in your land?’

That seemed a very long time ago. Lavender oil and her hair piled on top of her head and bronze plates of grapes and almonds. She folded her arms. ‘Yes, but –‘

He leaned closer. ‘But what?’ The words like two small twigs snapping.

‘They are paid.’ She was sure they were. Perhaps not much, but - 

‘Our slaves are paid. They are fed, they have a roof over their heads.’ He shrugs, and she imagines the same shrug being a command for enemy soldiers to be attacked. ‘They get to keep their lives.’

The prisoners were being made to stand up, gathered together as if nothing more than a herd of sheep. ‘But how would you feel if your family were stolen –‘

‘Princess.’ Ragnar put a hand on her arm, but his eyes were arrowflints now. ‘You have brought many ideas to us, and for that we are thankful. But you cannot change everything. This is our way. You insult me to speak of it.’ And he lifted Ragnvald into his arms, muttering into his ear. ‘You are too heavy for me. You are a boulder with chains around it. One day you will flatten me.’ They disappeared into his rooms.

Floki was kicking the ankles of a frail-looking young man as the group were made to exit the longhouse. Even Thorunn, who she knew had been a slave, did not look ashamed.

Rollo was sitting down nearby, his hands clasped. Watching her.

She felt petulant. Dothrakis had slaves. The _uncivilised_ had slaves. She stalked up to him. ‘Do you feel better now?’ 

Rollo stood up, stretching his shoulders back, and she could feel the heat of him, like a slow wave. ‘No.’ His look was mud and stone, but it lightened just a little as he leant forward. ‘I didn’t get to kill them, did I?’ He looked over her head. ‘Not many, anyway.’ He watched her as she chewed her cheek in frustration. ‘It’s better that they are alive.’

There was a smear of dirt on his temple. Dark lines in the fine creases in his forehead. It might have been blood. Hadn’t he washed since returning home? Sansa thought of holding a heavy cloth to his face, the water running down his face and dripping onto her. Ice and fire again, in her throat and in her stomach. She moved away from him, quickly.

***

You slept badly. Siggy was still here, stuck in your ribs, under your tongue. You wanted her to go but it was as if she lived in the smoke dancing off the fires. She watched you as she would a box of jewels that she wanted no one else to have. It would be just like her, to walk after death, even though she had not been buried but burnt.

You kept expecting her to appear, blue as death and taller than she had been in life. You looked for her in animals, and when Hvitserk came to you with a cat in his arms you took it from him, threw it into a hay-pile and made your nephew cry. 

The half-light was the worst time, before night dragged all of itself in. You stumbled through it, quickly and looking nowhere but at your feet, until you had got inside the longhouse.

***

The feast-table was a quiet one. Many of Kattegat’s and Lagertha's villagers had moved up into makeshift lodgings nearer Floki’s now that it was warm enough, watching over the slaves and helping with the building themselves. The very young or elderly slaves were kept in the village, and walked with ropes around their necks or wrists, glum-faced. 

Sansa sat with Aslaug, carefully watching Rollo stare into his ale-cup as if one of his gods – perhaps Vör – might be in there. She had become more and more aware of his presence in the room, a deep shadow, a thumbed imprint on the inside of her skull. She felt she had to keep glancing over to check that he was still there. 

Athelstan was still far too unwell to move. He would be bed-bound for some time. To Sansa’s surprise, Lagertha had come to his bedside and told her that she would sit with him. Sansa had left her telling him how different he was from when they had first met, and Athelstan sleepily murmuring a reply.

Rollo was not eating. She had not seen him eat since Siggy had died.

‘What are you thinking of, Sansa?’ Aslaug was looking at her. 

‘Nothing. Just – I was thinking of how you - live with the dead here.’

‘The dead are gone and they are not gone. They are still with us. They walk among us. You know this.’ Her eyes were bright with wisdom.

Sansa had not thought of her own family for a while and her heart filled with guilt. 

‘I do not say this to upset you,’ Aslaug said, her voice as gentle as a spring breeze lifting petals. ‘Life is long string that never ends. It frays into many parts. We go into the forests and the flowers, the water and the sky.’ She rested a hand on Sansa’s for just a moment before Ragnvald came up to her to show her the mountains he had made with his mashed turnips.

Sansa watched Rollo for a moment longer before she rose, taking her bread with her.

He looked up only when she was standing right next to him. There were deep, red lines under his eyes, the faint scars on his cheeks like drawings of tree-roots.

She put her bread next to his hand. ‘You should eat.’

He put his lips together, but he looked so resigned. ‘Why are you always trying to help me?’

She hardly knew herself. She felt like there were two Sansas, one who had stayed talking to Aslaug and Hvitserk, and one who was here, where she shouldn’t be. ‘I – I just don’t want you to be unhappy.’ 

‘Why not?’ His voice sounded like thick-stirred mud. ‘Why do you care?’

‘I just -' _I just do_ , she thought and turned to go, her cheeks prickling with heat.

Fingers on her wrist, pulling her back round towards him. A fast movement, one that made her remember the warrior underneath the tired, wounded man gazing at her. Sansa almost stumbled, instinctively putting her hand out onto his shoulder to balance.

His look was burning peat. It seemed to want her to go and to stay all at once.

Her thumb was on the skin of his neck. Her knee against his. Something in her throat smouldered, low and glowing. As gracefully as she could, she straightened, removed her hand from his shoulder. 

Rollo's thumb was still on the raised bone of her other wrist. Gently, he pulled her to him so that his mouth was close to her ear. She had no idea what he would say, or if he would say anything. When his voice did come, it made her think of a flare, far off in the dark, searching. ‘Thank you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  **   
>  Norse Mythology School
> 
> _**Vör**_ is the goddess of wisdom
> 
> The Vikings believed strongly in death being only a transformation into other things, and life as a much more blurry existence than the Christian/post-Christian societies. Though they believed in the dead going to either Hel, Folkvang or Valhalla (the _**ancestor**_ ), it was believed that some parts of the dead remained with the living. There was sometimes a fear of the dead walking among them - the 'walking dead'. If you buried a person, they might return as a mound-dwellers ( _ **draugr**_ ), guarding their own burial hoards viciously.
> 
> The undead were sometimes seen as _**hel-blár**_ (blue or black as death) and larger and stronger than in real life. They could come back as animals such as seals and cats – in an Icelandic saga, a cat sits on a sleeper’s chest and grows heavier until the victim suffocates.
> 
>  
> 
> [Lots more here if you're interested!](http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ghosts.shtml)


	27. Sansa In Training

Floki has built a boat. It is fat and tall, with sides like the flank of a pregnant cow. This great, dark animal sits on flat planks of wood that slope down to the water at the forest-edge. It is twice as wide as their ships, and longer by half. Loose wool-sails hang at the sides of two masts and the back end of it is squared off, with a small platform. Perhaps that is where Ragnar will sit. 

There is a greenness to the oakwood which matches the colour of Floki as he watches the ropes be thrown over the sides. He bites his nails, looking at Ragnar, mand moves as if maggots crawl under his clothes. Always so nervous before a launching. As if Helga herself lies there on the planks, legs apart, ready to birth it.

‘She is beautiful. As beautiful as both of my wives.’ Ragnar says it quietly enough for Lagertha, standing nearby, not to hear, and slides a grin along to him.

Men ready themselves with the ropes – his people, Lagertha’s people, their slaves – gathering themselves in human chains, ready to help the beast into the water.

‘Beautiful is one thing,’ says Floki, not smiling back. ‘Seaworthy is quite another.’ 

***

Slowly, the season turned. Only the tops of the mountains now were coated with a snow that shone like set honey in the sun, and below them, they spread green, a green infused with the shimmer and spell of water. The streams and the pools gulped up the blue sky, and all the colours were caught in Athelstan’s eyes as Sansa helped him through the village.

He was walking for the first time since the battle. He gently complained of headaches and seemed to find the sun an opponent after so long lying in the dark, but she coaxed him outside nonetheless. Members of the village not over at Floki’s came up to him, an old woman touching his hair, another holding his arm as if he were her son, and he smiled at them sheepishly. 

‘It is better. To be outside.’ He carefully twisted his body towards Sansa – the bandage padded with sheep’s wool on his neck meant he couldn’t turn his head. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’m just glad you are up. I was getting very bored of your bed. I mean – with you lying there -' she flushed and grinned at the same time.

His smile made her think of an early spring harebell. ‘I know what you mean. I think.’ His eyes flickered past her and a tiny breath caught in his throat. ‘Now I definitely am glad I got up.’ He nodded out to sea.

Sansa couldn’t quite see anything at first, with the sun dinting itself brightly into the water. She brought a hand up to her eyes. _There_ – a dark curved shadow. Moving. 

A boat. Floki’s new boat, and hers, in a way, with her early drawings. It was sliding across the bay, far up at Floki’s side of the mountain, with two pale, square sails. As they watched, it turned slightly, as if a great hand was curved around it, coaxing it further out to sea. 

***

‘Louder!’

You sat on the porch of the longhouse, working a carved elm bowshaft into shape and mostly watching two girls fight like tree sparrows in the middle of the village. Thorunn had her strong legs dug into the path, Sansa her shield outstretched on one arm. They were in breeches and boots, leather straps spiralling round their ankles. You liked them both better this way. 

It had been a while since you had been in Kattegat properly. You had spent a lot of time up in the forest at Floki’s, overseeing the boat-making, getting the slaves to work, working a little yourself. It was better, throwing yourself into hacking at the trunks, watching them shatter themselves, making clouds of pine needles rise. You made yourself a dark presence amongst the trees, delivered threats to those who did not work, sometimes delivered more than threats.

The boat sailed, and sailed well, and Ragnar made his plans – _your_ plans, too – for the voyage to England.

When you did return to your own house, you were usually asleep before you had even fallen into bed properly. Siggy could not haunt you if you were in your dead state, tired enough not to dream, not to visit other worlds.

Thorunn was trying to get the _raf refr_ to scream. ‘If you want blood, you have to show it in your lungs, not just your arms.’ She jabbed her fingers towards Sansa’s face. ‘And in your _eyes_.’

You didn’t hide your smile, though you looked down at your work when Sansa turned her head.

‘Stop laughing at me,’ she said, her cheeks the colour of catchfly. She was holding the short sword that you had given her many months ago.

You shook your head, kept your small smile, continued stretching the slim band of wood.

‘Ignore him - he can’t do anything without stuffing his stomach full of mushrooms first,’ said Thorunn.

You put the bowshaft down by your feet, clasped your hands. ‘Is that what you think?’

Thorunn folded her arms, gave a dark grin. ‘Yes. We don’t need that. We can _bezerkr_ on our own. We find our own rage.’

You could imagine her teeth on your earlobe. ‘I’m sure of it. But you won’t get very far on just your woman-rage using your shield like that.’

Sansa lowered her arm, her hair lifting off in strands, the pale shield in front of her as if she was Borghild, mist and moon. ‘What do you mean?’

You picked up some bowstrings and began to twist them. ‘She’s teaching you wrong.’

‘I am not,’ said Thorunn.

You didn’t look up. ‘You’re holding it too low. Your shield. It needs to come to just over your mouth.’ The mouth you didn’t want to imagine full of her own blood in battle, only full of breath-cries as you kissed her stomach. 

The warrior-girl made a sound like someone punching her in the teeth. ‘She _was_ doing that.’ 

‘Not enough. And it’s too much in front of you. Both of you. You should have it on the side if you are using swords as well.’

The _raf refr_ was looking uncertainly at Thorunn. She glared at her, and at you. ‘Fine. _You_ show us.’

***

For the first time in many turns of the moon, Sansa was truly at a loss for words. She could not think of any, not in her own language, in the Northern, or Athelstan’s, or anything else. Words had flown, birds escaping the winter. The reason for this flight was in front of her.

To her surprise, Rollo had agreed to train them a little. And here he was now, standing at the lip of the tide, a shield latched onto one forearm, an axe hanging casually from his fingers. 

And no tunic on.

Why was he tunic-less? Sansa couldn’t think of a single reason. It wasn’t even that warm. Even Thorunn seemed a little astonished, just for a moment. 

She had always known that he was built like a warrior. It was easy enough to know from the way he moved in the battle, from the way he walked on the paths as if the wind was a shield wall to be shouldered. But she hadn’t been prepared for the sheer _announcement_ of himself. The broad chest and rash of hair. The stomach that made her think of the sides of a longship. 

But it was the tattoos that stole her tongue away. There were large dogs on both of his upper arms, facing inwards, their jaws open. On the left side of his chest was a small black sun and on the other a crescent moon. One side of his torso had sweeping lines of dark colour, interlinking like the shallow waves he was currently standing in. He was like one of the books Athelstan talked of making in England. She had a sudden image of Athelstan painting on Rollo’s skin by tallowed light and bit down on her lip hard. Gods.

Rollo turned to face the sea, swinging his axe casually, his wrist circling. His _back_. Thorunn glanced at Sansa with her eyebrows raised and she could only widen her eyes back. Athelstan was slimmer and more pale, though still strong, the undertow of a calm river. Rollo’s strength was – _visible_. He turned back to them with a quick, flint-strike glance. Sansa looked very seriously at the sand. The grains of sand. The thick, dark grains of sand.

Of course it was Thorunn who spoke first. ‘If you want to pay us back you will have to do more than that.’ 

His eyebrows tugged in together a little. ‘Pay you back for what?’

‘The day you -' she flashed a crow-dart look at Sansa. ‘ _Found_ us. At the waterfall.’ 

Rollo’s jaw tightened. Sansa elbowed Thorunn in the arm, and she felt her own bone dig back into her in return. His eyes gave the faintest roll, a boat at the beginning of a sea-storm.

Thorunn gave a grin that made her think of the grubby stream that guttered along one edge of the village. ‘Come on then, show us your _bezerkr_ skills.’

‘No. Something more simple.’

***

You had them stand in front of you, facing the sea.

‘Think of it as part of you. Not as a defence. It is a weapon.’ You showed them with your own shield, which had many iron clamps to repair the edges after the fight-that-was-not-a-fight at Horik’s brother’s village.

‘I know that,’ said Thorunn under her breath, glaring at the sand.

‘It should touch hand, arm and shoulder.’ You moved Sansa’s shield a little more to the side of her, and she looked up at you with a – you were not sure what the look meant. ‘Like this you can attack and defend.’ Her eyes flickered to your upper arm before she nodded.

It made you remember your old self, seeing her look on you like that. Like many girls had looked on you, here in Kattegat, at Uppsala, on your travels to the other villages on Ragnar’s behalf. It wasn’t why you had removed your tunic – it was good to train this way, show them you could take a hit, make them not afraid to try and strike you. Mostly.

‘Don’t keep your shield too close to your body. Hold it out –‘ you stretched your arm. ‘Then you can move with it, break a blow.’ You nodded to Sansa. ‘Attack me.’

Her eyes flew to Thorunn, a fledgling out of its nest for the first time. ‘I -' 

Thorunn rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. I will go first.’ She raised her sword and came at you too fast. 

You raised your shield just a little, turned, watched her bounce off you. She came again and her sword glanced off the edge of your shield and out of her hand. A fire-hiss breath as she collected it. The third time her sword stuck fast in your shield, though not with enough force for you to see its point on the inside wall. She gave an angry, strangled yell as she tried to wrench it free and get at you with her shield, but you twisted and shoved at her until she went backwards, falling with a splash into the shallow water.

You stood over her. ‘You look very comfortable down there.’ She went to move and you put your axe close to her neck. ‘Wet and on your back.’

The warrior-girl stared at you, two small sea-salted pebbles. ‘You are an idiot.’

You grinned and removed the blade from her neck, holding your hand out to her. 

She ignored it, rolling onto her side and upwards, water falling heavily from her sleeves. Her teeth chattered. ‘Do you know the story of Helgi Droplaugarson?’ You did, but you let her tell you it anyway. ‘He hurled a spear between his enemy’s legs. It pierced his balls to the snowdrift and he hung there for a whole day.’ She stalked off, her tunic clinging to her back, shoulder-blades like juts on a mountain. It was the most fun you had had in a long time. 

The _raf refr_ stood alone now, her shield hanging awkwardly, the edges of her hair damp at her forehead, turning her face to yours. 

***

‘I’m sorry. She gets - quite angry.’ Sansa watched Thorunn disappear, before half-turning to Rollo. 

She still couldn’t look at him properly, at his skin that had a cool greyness to it in this light. The muscles in his back as he had twisted away from Thorunn made her think of something moving under the sea, or the wind sweeping over it. There were small diagonal scars across his stomach, as if he had been struck by Mjöllnir, just enough. She felt like Thor’s hammer had grazed her, too, sparks flittering behind her ribs.

‘Anger is good,’ he said. ‘You just have to know how to use it.’

‘What do you think about?’ 

The hint of rain in the air made his hair a dark waterfall, rope-like tendrils clinging to his shoulders. ‘It’s usually easy to be angry when the other person is trying to kill you.’

‘Is it true that you wanted to kill Ragnar?’ She said it before she could stop herself, remembering what Athelstan had told her once.

It was as if she had slammed a shield up under his chin. The green in his eyes turned to winter fir. ‘Yes. Once.’ He sat down, just at the edge of the water.

Sansa slid her shield off her arm. It had made pale red dents on her wrist and she was sure that she would feel its ghost there for days.

Rollo was staring out to sea, his elbows on his knees, the muscles on his back stretched taut. She sat down next to him on the cold sand, folding her legs underneath her. The braided metal of the bracelet on his wrist was so much more noticeable on the bare skin of his arm. There were two small dog-heads facing each other – or wolves. Perhaps they were wolves painted on his arms, too. She tried not to think about tracing them with her finger, wolf-curves on warm, damp skin. 

He did not seem angry. She turned her palms over and spoke carefully. ‘We had a -' she did not know the word for _ward_. 'A boy we looked after in our family, Theon, who grew up with us. He was like a brother, especially to Robb.’ She could see them now, flitting through the forest as quick as deer, shouting about horses and girls and swords. ‘And then he betrayed us. He killed my little brothers.’ Sansa looked at him. She knew what had happened - Rollo giving himself up to his brother at the battle between them, allowed to live, eventually forgiven by Ragnar. ‘You didn’t do any of that. You were - brave, in the end.’

He turned his head to her and she swore she saw forests in his eyes. Paths to wander down, deep into pine-trees, like the ones in Old Nan’s stories where wolves and crones and serpents lived. 

And then he smiled, two forked lines appearing at the corners of his eyes, and her heart plunged. ‘Come on. You haven't tried yet.’

***

You were gentle with her – one proper shield-slam would break bones. She still looked uncomfortable and you saw her, with a disappointment you tried to ignore, as Aslaug again, or Siggy. Some women were just not meant to fight.

But a thought came to you like the flick of a horse’s tail. ‘Wait.’ You put your hand out. ‘Give me your shield.’

She passed it to you, and her cheeks were wolf-blood dissolved onto ice. 

‘Use your other hand.’ She did not understand. ‘Your sword. Put it in your other hand.’

You got her to shadow your arm movements, slowly, and her eyes were serious and wide, eyebrows like the silhouette of a bird’s wings far-off. 

It was as you thought. ‘You are a left-handed sword-fighter.’ 

Her face cleared, clouds lifting off the mountain-top. 

‘And this shield is too heavy for you. You need one made of linden-wood. I will make one for you.’ You bent down a little to her, and tried not to breathe her in, her sweat and cold clay smells. Her lips came apart and you thought of the inside of mussel-shells. ‘We will make a shieldmaiden of you yet.’

And she grinned at you.

***

Ragnar lies awake, every part of his skin and bone alive. The boat sails. Floki had let out one giggle as the sails had come down and the wind swept them on their course. They will raid England, make no negotiations, take their treasures and return. There are bigger lands to learn and they sing to him, every night now.

There is a noise. Ragnar begins to reach under the bed for his sword but his hand stills as he listens more carefully. Animal-sounds, at the further end of the longhouse, where Athelstan sleeps, muffled a little by wood and cloth. Girl-sounds. The princess is taking her pleasure, and she is not being shy about it. 

Athelstan must be recovering well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _ **Borghild**_ is the goddess of the evening mist or moon, who slays the sun each  
>  evening.
> 
>  _ **Mjöllnir**_ , or ‘lightning’, is Thor’s hammer.
> 
>  **Floki’s Boat-building corner (with thanks to PurpleMoon3)** :
> 
> I am mixing ideas from the 10th-12th-century cog with later longships and other medieval bits. But also purposefully keeping it vague so as to avoid getting sucked into twenty unnecessary hours of historical boat-research… *fending off rabid boat-experts with linden-wood shield*  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_(ship)#mediaviewer/File:Modell_der_Bremer_Kogge_von_1380.jpg
> 
>  **Norse wildflower seminar** :
> 
>  _ **Harebells**_[look like this](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-purple/harebell.htm).
> 
> _**Catchfly**_[looks like this!](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-red/alpine-catchfly.htm)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ***
> 
> Happy Valisblot everyone! Thanks as always for reading and reviewing - I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for you... ♥♡♥


	28. Sansa And The Seer

\- _scratch snuffle cough and dry crunch through the forest, a quick rasp a quick piss and – wait._

_There are deer nearby. Hot musk-breath. Red slice of lung. She can sense them. Twitch-muscles and panic. The way they turn themselves into the trunks of trees._

_She can hear her own voice – a sniff, a hoarse half-bark, a yowl like a fine length of wool unwinding deep in her throat. In an eyeblink they move and she moves, all sinew, a ribbon through the trees, chasing their flight, the sunlight falling like stars and she runs straight into a clearing and -_

_A man. Dark, tall as a tree, holding a bow tense, the arrow-point aimed straight for her heart_ \- 

Sansa shot up out of bed, her hand on her breastplate. Wolf. Sweat was slicked on her forehead, her collarbone, making her nightshift a second skin. Tentatively she pulled down the neckline. No wound. Her chest was smooth, not matted with coarse hair. 

Gods. Slowly she folded her legs back under the furs and lay staring up into the darkness, listening to her heart, her other self disappearing among the trees away from her. The dream had been so vivid, so – real. She was having more moments like these, slipping into a forest-world where she was more wolf than girl. And they didn’t always happen at night.

It frightened her.

***

‘What is here?’ Ragnar puts the point of a dagger on a map of England that Athelstan drew, years ago.

‘All of this is North-umbria. Up to there.’ Athelstan draws his finger up to a deep inlet. His other arm sits loose on his lap, like a dead rabbit. He is much recovered, but is not yet his former self. Quiet, but not as strong.

Ragnar’s head hurts. It is the start of Walpurgis and a drinking match with Torstein last night had turned into a long and bloodied battle. ‘And what is north of there? All this land. Are they rich towns?’

‘No. It is a lawless land. And poor, mostly. Apart from the monasteries on the west coast.’ He points to a square at the south of the inlet. ‘There _is_ Ed-in-burgh. It is a large town.’

‘Could we raid it?’

Athelstan never answers quickly, as if he has a mouthful of goat he has to swallow first. ‘I only went there once, many years ago. But I think it would be difficult. You can reach it by sea, but there is a tall fortress.’

‘Who rules there? That fat king?’

‘It was Athelred. Now I think it is Eardwulf.’

‘Athelred. A name much like yours.’ He smiles. ‘Perhaps you will be a king there someday.’

Athelstan shakes his head as he smiles back. ‘I don’t think so, Ragnar.’

Ragnar shoves him gently with his shoulder, a little rowboat stuck on the shoreline. ‘Maybe I will make you one.’ Another shy smile from his friend, who looks tired. ‘I need you to draw me another map. I need to know more. All the towns here on this coastline. The monasteries.’

Athelstan carefully turns over the hand of his injured arm. ‘I cannot draw well yet.’

‘Sansa, then.’ He puts honey into his voice. ‘I believe she can do many things well these days.’

His eyes are unblinking, wide, like many realms at once. ‘She is – she learns very fast.’

‘I believe it. I _hear_ it.’ It is worth teasing Athelstan to see his cheeks turn the colour of sunset. But teasing is only amusing for so long. Ragnar straightens. ‘Where is the princess? Get her to draw it.’

His friend looks at him simply, and scratches his skull. ‘Training. With Rollo.’

Before he can respond, Torstein is there, panting a little. ‘Ragnar.’

‘What?’ He puts a hand on his arm. ‘What is it?’

Torstein is looking green. Still fighting with last night’s ale, catching his breath. ‘Floki needs you.’

***

‘Higher.’

‘But I can’t see you.’

‘Better that you don’t if I am trying to break your skull.’

Rollo was showing Sansa how to hold her shield in a new defensive position, near the head, with her hand next to her face. It was easier with this new shield – he had found her by the stream one day and held out a lighter, linden-wood shield that he had made himself. 

They had trained several times since the first attempt. Thorunn had joined them twice more but it had always ended the same way – with Rollo baiting her friend and Thorunn looking ready to bite his limbs off before marching away. He didn’t seem to needle Sansa so much. Or perhaps she just didn’t react it to it. 

She couldn’t help but think of Arya. Her dancing master who was not a dancing master, who had made her chase cats and stand on one leg at King’s Landing. Sometimes Sansa had tripped over her sister standing flat against the wall in the shadows, whispering about rivers and birds. Sadness pooled in Sansa’s throat like tree-sap. She hoped that Arya would have been proud of her, if she could see her now.

‘All your bones hold you this way, not just your arm. Use it like this.’ Rollo made small, fast movements with his own shield. 

Perhaps this was like dancing, in a way. Sansa thought of drums and flutes and her cheek tucked into his warm chest, and chewed on her lip. She didn’t know why he was helping her. Surely he had better things to do than train a fledgling fighter. Yet he seemed to enjoy it and she wanted to do well for him – the assessing looks he gave her as he watched her practise made her stronger.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Now if you twist here -' she flushed with alarm as his hand came onto her hip, though he seemed untroubled by it. ‘You can use it to strike. Try it.’

It was not like before, when he had smirked at her for being a maiden, or longer ago than that, stalking up to her and asking her to have sex with him as if it was as simple as passing him an ale-cup. Rollo seemed different now, since Siggy. The storms were more distant. She couldn’t help noticing the green of his tunic - to her guilty disappointment, he had worn once since the first time - making his eyes more green than brown today. Fine hairs of his chest were visible at the neckline. Grime in the well at his throat. Gods.

‘What are you waiting for?’ 

‘Sorry.’ Sansa always felt like such an idiot trying to hit him. He was a warrior, practically chopped down and carved by a boat-maker, and she was – curdled goat-milk. She took a deep breath, drew her shield up – her sword in her left hand, which did seem easier – and lunged at him.

She might as well have attacked a cowshed door. 

‘Why are you thinking about it?’ he said. ‘It’s not a word to be learnt.’ He was hardly moving for her, to make it easier, twisting just enough. 

She aimed the edge of her shield at his hip and he blocked her with his own. ‘That would not ruffle the fur of a squirrel.’

‘You’re bigger than me.’

‘Everyone will be bigger than you.’

‘That’s not true. I’m tall for a girl.’

‘You’re tiny.’ 

A little spark of fury scraped against her ribs and she slammed against him more forcefully. 

‘There,’ he said. ‘A little anger. But not enough. What makes you angry?’

She saw Arya again, the last time she had seen her, running out of their solar with her wooden sword behind her back. ‘Lots of things.’

‘Who do you hate? Think about them. Pretend I am one of the people who killed your family.’

Tywin. Cersei. ‘Don’t do that. I don’t want to think about it.’

‘You have to. Until you have an opponent who actually wants to hurt you. Who killed your father?’

Joffrey. Ser Illyn Payne. She saw them all, ghosting into one, hate-smiles and cold words, lifted her arm and charged at him. 

He met her like a boulder. ‘Who killed your mother? Where are they now? What would you do to them if they were here?’ 

For all his goading, she still couldn’t get near him. It was infuriating. ‘ _Rollo_.’ 

‘What?’

Sansa stopped dead. Addressing him by name was like sending a breeze over an alpine field – a tiny, subtle change in his expression. Something more open, unguarded. She knew what to do. She took a breath, held it for a moment. ‘Rollo,’ she said again, her voice dropping. 

And he froze.

The air altered. Frustratedly frenzied actions had become utter stillness. The brine-smell of the sea. Gulls.

Sansa let herself do what she had wanted to do all afternoon. She gazed at him. At the eyes that were like sunlight on forest pools. At his hair, the colour of rain-rich earth. Carefully, she let her lips come apart, just a little. 

Rollo stared back, the casual predator becoming something nearer prey, almost guileless. His shoulder lowered, and his shield with it. He swallowed.

As quickly as she could, she twisted a little more to the side, spun forward and dug her sword around his shield.

***

She actually cut you. In an instant, Sansa had turned from flitting woodland bird to – something else entirely, a woman with songs in her and a slickness you could almost smell, a slick-song that turned your bones to mud, and then she cut you. In the arm. Not very deep, but the blood came like a slow thought. 

And you had thought a woman less a warrior than a man. 

‘I’m sorry.’ Her shield hung down, her sword lowered. She looked amazed, and like you might slice her in two.

‘Are you going to apologise to every man you kill?’

She shook her head and bit her lip, the lip that looked full of rosewater and mead, the lip you wanted to taste, make bleed. ‘I’ll get some cloth.’ She put down her weapons.

You sat down. ‘Forget it. It is a scratch. Like a sparrow landed on me.’ She looked disappointed. ‘A very cunning sparrow.’

The proud grin she gave you was more of a wound than your arm. _Ice-cold iron flying through your middle_ , like Thormod. It surprised you how much amusing her pleased you. 

Her smile disappeared as she sat next to you, leaning towards your arm. ‘It _is_ bleeding.’

You held it up and the blood trickled down to your elbow. ‘I have bled before. I will weather it.’ You looked at her. ‘Warriors let their wounds heal naturally if they can. It pleases Odin to do so.’ That or you would put hot cow’s piss on it later.

She stared at you. Eyes like mountain lakes. You could take your clothes off and swim in them. ‘I – I wanted to ask you something.’

 _Come to bed with me. Put yourself inside me. Put your tongue here, put your cock here. Let me_ \- ‘What?’ 

‘I want to go – to the seer.’

A pebble dropping into a far pool. Not that, then. ‘Fine. Go.’

She took a breath in but didn’t speak. The light from the spring sun made her skin look like the petals of meadowrue. 

‘What is it?’ 

‘He frightens me,’ she said.

‘He is just an old man.’

‘Will you come with me?’ 

You looked at her. A question that was almost the same as a hand held out to you. ‘Why don’t you ask your priest to go with you?’ You could not help a little bitterness in your voice. She was always at his side, helping him limp around the village as if he were an old man, hands and arms and soft words. Athelstan did not let his wounds heal naturally. Though you supposed he had been hurt quite badly. 

Her eyes lost some of their light. ‘He’s not -' she drew her knees up to her chin and turned her head to you. ‘Athelstan says that the seer will not go near him. Because he is - was - a Christian. I’m not sure if he will see me.’

You sniffed. ‘He will see you, if you want to see him.’

The _raf refr_ ’s smile was a stir of a finger in warm milk. Grateful, honest. And you knew then. That now, with Siggy gone, you wanted her more than ever. You wanted to be the finger in -

A cough behind you.

***

Ragnar finds them sitting on rocks, Sansa clutching her knees, their shields laid apart from them in the sand. She looks startled when he calls her. ‘Princess. Athelstan needs you.’

Her eyes fly to his brother, quick as a gnat, before she looks at Ragnar in the way she does now, part-slave girl, part-queen. ‘Yes. Of course.’ She rises, picks up her weapons, leaves.

Rollo has blood on his sleeve. 

‘Tell me you let her do that,’ Ragnar says.

His brother looks down at it, and back at him. ‘Not exactly.’

Ragnar smiles at the sea. ‘I would have thought that training a woman such as the princess would be beneath you.’

‘She is learning. Why should she not?’

Because in years to come Bjørn will need a woman like Aslaug, he thinks. One who will bear him many strong sons and stay at home, wherever that home may be. But no time for this now. ‘I need you, brother.’

Rollo sees his face and stands, holding his forearm straight, his mouth on the cut, sucking. 

‘A man at Floki’s,’ Ragnar tells him. ‘He tried to kill two of our men. He threatened Helga and their child. We need a show of strength.’

His brother’s face becomes rain-clouds. ‘Is that all I am good for, brother? No more than an ox for you to yoke when you like?’

Ragnar sighs. Always the wounded one, wounds that are never quite closed. ‘No. Do not be foolish. But that is not to say that you cannot strike terror into hearts when you so wish it.’ He glances back towards the village, where a flash of amber is disappearing into the longhouse. ‘Though perhaps not all the time.’

Ragnar, Rollo and Torstein find the new slaves huddling in a circle, surrounded by his own villagers. There are bruised faces and a child is crying, a bleating sound that tires him. Iron and anger in the air.

‘Where is the man who has caused this?’ Ragnar says, in his king-voice.

‘I killed him already.’ Floki wears an innocent child-face, though there is deep red on his fingers and along his jaw, and the madness of Óðr in his eyes. ‘What? I could not help it.’

A man from the crowd of slaves leaps up, pushes past his men towards him, shouting angrily. ‘You son of a whore, he was my cousin –‘ and Rollo is there, kicking him at the back of the leg, grabbing his arms, twisting them behind him.

Floki lets out a giggle and scratches the back of his head.

Ragnar glares at him as he would one of his sons, before addressing the slaves. ‘I know we brought you here against your will. That you work for us against your will. But what you are doing is not just for us. It is for you.’ He sweeps his eyes over them. ‘For _all_ the people of this land. The boats you build are like no other, and they will take anyone who wants to go over the sea. Not just to England but to new lands we know about. Lands of great riches, where you can settle with your family.’

He walks over to a woman who clutches a child to her breast. She whimpers as he bends down and picks her child up. He speaks to the girl, but so that everyone can hear. ‘I give you my word as your king. Those that work honestly and well will be rewarded with their freedom one day. You need not be thralls for long.’

He brushes the thick, reindeer moss-hair from the little girl’s ear and smiles at her. ‘Those that choose not to will suffer at my hand. At the hands of my brother.’

Rollo is still holding the struggling man. Ragnar looks at him. Rollo puts his hand on the man’s jaw and breaks his neck.

***

‘Girl of many gods. I was wondering if you would ever speak to me.’

The seer’s house was dark, cobwebbed, and smelt of stewing hay. Long strings of flat stones, the sort you could skip on water, hung from the ceiling. Shorter strips of material dangled between them. Skulls. Sansa tried hard to suppress a shudder.

‘What do you seek?’ A voice from a cave of darkness. He was huddled in blankets and she could hardly see the face she had feared ever since she saw him in the village that first time, so long ago.

‘I – I want to know why I am seeing things.’

‘What things? Please sit properly.’ This wasn’t addressed to her.

Rollo slouched in the darkest corner, having violently flung away a few cobwebs. ‘I can do what I want.’ 

The seer made a strange, faraway noise, like an old bear growling.

Rollo glared at him, before removing his boots from the chair and folding his arms.

Sansa felt better with him here. She could just see the seer’s black mouth, and - that smell. It made her want to gag. ‘I keep dreaming of - being a wolf.’ 

The seer shifted and his sigh was like the sea-bed shifting. ‘We all have our ______.’ A new word. 

He said it again, a word that had dank, ancient earth in it. ‘ _Fylgjur_. Our animal twin. They follow you through life.’ He breathed out, heavily. ‘Have you seen this wolf?’

‘No.’ He wasn’t listening properly. ‘I _am_ the wolf. In my head. I am in the forest – once I saw myself looking back at me. Like I had left my own skin.’ She didn’t say who she had last seen seen, aiming an arrow at her breast. ‘And then I wake up, or – find myself back in my own body.’

The seer didn’t say anything. She could just hear his breath scratching the back of his throat, and something more fluid there. 

She glanced over at Rollo. He had stopped with his restless movement and was staring at her. 

‘Leave me.’ The seer leaned back, further away from her, into the gloom.

He hadn’t told her anything. ‘But -'

‘Leave me. I will talk to them.’

‘To whom?’

A rumble, more menacing. ‘To whom, she asks. As if there are so many gods she may choose from to give her her answers. Who are your gods?’ The words sounded dangerous now.

The Seven. The old gods. The Northmen’s gods. Athelstan’s god. ‘I – I don’t know.’

‘I do not waste time talking to someone who does not want to hear the answers of the true gods.’

‘But I do.’ She knew Athelstan still found it hard, to leave his old god behind. Why couldn’t she be like that?

‘Take this girl away.’

Rollo stood up. She looked at him. ‘He is like this with everyone,’ he said, his voice a lithe shadow. ‘Even those who only believe in the true gods. Isn’t that right, old man?’

The seer was facing the wall now, his head obscured by the rough material of his cloak-hood. ‘Always you insult me. I never tell an untruth.’ 

Sansa stood, feeling lost – a ghost caught between two worlds. And her own wolf-ghost haunting her. As she turned, there was a rattling cough. She looked back to see a large, pale hand held out to her, palm upwards. 

She glanced at Rollo. 

‘You have to lick it,’ he said.

‘What?’ Sansa glared at him. That wasn’t even funny.

A slow smile spread across his face, disappearing into his beard. He nodded at the seer’s hand, his eyebrows raised like two sides of a drawbridge.

She - couldn’t. That was _disgusting_. 

Rollo leant forward to her, his hair sliding down over this shoulder. His voice was low and quiet, fine-threaded with amusement. ‘You must lick his hand or you will insult him further.’

Oh Gods. She took a deep breath. It couldn’t be worse than curtseying to Cersei. She could see his thick black lips, the lips of a sheep or a deer. Quickly, she bent down, took his hand, and licked the palm. 

Sansa didn’t say a word as they walked back down the path, the taste of stale bread, onion skins and sand on her tongue. Rollo was still smiling, his quick looks marking her like the dark flecks on a silver birch.

She wondered what he would taste like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Kingwatch** :
> 
> I’m a bit confused about the names of the kings in the show, as some sources say that King Athelred ruled Northumbria until 796 (rather than Aella, who seemed to come a bit later), then Osbald for a month, then Eardwulf, and this would be the time that we would be in post-Season 2 of Vikings, around 797. Apparently it’s unclear from historical sources when Aella ruled. So I’m going with Athelred, for fun, and because it sounds like Athelstan.
> 
> Sidenote: Northumbria stretched up to the Firth of Forth (eg north of Edinburgh) until the 13th century. 
> 
> The monastries on the west coast of Scotland mentioned by Athelstan included Iona, sacked by the Vikings in the mid-9th century.
> 
> I have used the Old English spelling of Edinburh (which might also have been Edinburg) – _burh_ means ‘fortification.’
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> The nine nights of April 22nd to 30th is the festival of _**Walpurgis**_ , venerated as the remembrance of Odin’s self-sacrifice on the tree Yggdrasil. More of this to come in the next chapter!
> 
> Rollo makes a reference to Thormod, a character in Snorri Sturluson’s saga _Heimskringla_ , which has one of the few references to Vikings’ wounds and healing. Thormod sings:
> 
> Wonders the woman why so  
> wan the tree-of-combat ('warrior').  
> Few from wounds grow fair-hued:  
> found me the flight of arrows.  
> The ice-cold iron,  
> linen-elm ('woman.),  
> flew through my middle.  
> Hard by my heart, think I,  
> hit me, the baleful weapon. 
> 
>  _ **Óðr**_ is the husband of Freyja. Óðr is Old Norse for the 'Divine Madness, frantic, furious, vehement, eager', as a noun 'mind, feeling' and also 'song, poetry', which seems pretty perfect for Floki…
> 
> The Norse believed that every human had a guardian spirit, called a _**fylgja**_ (plural _fylgjur_ ), which means ‘follower’. The spirit was usually in the form of an animal or sometimes looked like a twin. It was always invisible except in dreams or at the moment of death. When the fylgja appeared to a person who was awake, it was a sign of that person’s death. When the person died, the fylgja passed on to another member of the family.
> 
>  **Norse wildflower seminar** :
> 
> [ _**Meadowrue!** _ ](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-purple/alpine-meadowrue.htm)
> 
> [ _**Reindeer moss!** _ ](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/algae-lichen-moss/reindeer-moss.htm)


	29. Sansa and Walpurgisnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For two new readers, Aviendha and Violent_entertainment
> 
> Also, I'm requesting that we keep it a Season 3 spoiler-free zone in the comments! Just because some people won't be necessarily able to watch it yet... I personally can watch it a day or two after US broadcast. Spoiler-ers will get a simple axe in the head. :)

‘I am better, Father. I can come to England.’ Bjørn seems to know what Ragnar is going to say before he says it, yet his face still tumbles like a rock down a mountain. 

‘You cannot.’ Ragnar waves his fingers towards his son’s thigh. ‘You are wounded.’ He has watched him thump around the village, sometimes using a stick if he thinks his father is not watching, throwing it away if he thinks he is.

‘It is nothing.’ His eyes are like half-dried berries in unbaked bread. He is a bad liar. 

‘I admire your strength. But you will not come and put yourself in more danger.’ He puts more air into his voice. ‘Not until you are better.’

His little lady with the jagged eyes stands in the corner, chewing on her lip as if it is a rabbit leg. Bjørn’s eyes are great pools of disappointment, of hurt.

Ragnar places a hand up onto his shoulder. ‘One day you will be far greater than even me.’ He smiles. ‘The gods know this and so do I. For now, rest. Look after my village while we are away. You must rule it.’

‘I want to fight.’ For a moment, he is a small child again, the boy who ran after Gyda with a grass snake.

Ragnar lets a small sigh come. ‘This is not all we are. We must lead in many different ways. You should learn this too.’

Bjørn’s jaw falls open a little and he nods, heavy-headed, like an old horse.

The sun is bright this morning, striking metal into the highest parts of the mountains. Ragnar shuts an eye as he steps outside.

‘King Ragnar.’ Thorunn has followed him. She is restless, as if she is twigs and leaves and the autumn wind is skittering through her. 

‘What is it?’

She stands with her legs apart, a heron stuck in the mud. ‘I want to come with with you to England.’ 

Ragnar gathers his lips together like a cloth purse. He cannot help but smile. ‘My son is not coming.’

Her fingers drum on her hips. ‘He is injured. I am not.’

‘You do not want to stay with him here?’

‘I want to fight.’

‘You are still learning.’ He begins to turn away.

She folds her arms. ‘I am strong. You know I am. I fought well in the battle. I killed two men. I killed one of them with my shield and one of them with my sword.’

She has the eyes of a merlin or a goshawk. Ragnar smiles, dips his head. ‘As you wish.’

***

‘Odin spent many days walking up to Yggdrasil.’ Floki was standing in the middle of the longhouse, all eyes fixed upon him, jewelled and alive, as if light was shining on them for the first time. He walked the length of the room, hips swaying, fingers touching invisible fireflies. ‘And when he arrived there, he climbed up the great trunk and hung himself upside down.' He held his arms out, hands curling inwards, twisting his head. 

Walpurgisnight. The air was getting warmer and the fire worked its heat along Sansa’s cheeks, her throat. Athelstan was sitting next to her, one cool finger tucked under the hem of her neckline.

Floki had taken a boar-knife from a table. ‘He pierced himself with a spear and he peered down into the gloomy waters of the pool at the tree’s roots.’ With exaggerated slowness, even slower than his words, he touched the knife at his ribs before leaping up to hang on a roof-beam with one hand and swinging there, to blurred mumbles and laughs from everyone.

Tomorrow many of these men and some women would sail to England. Thorunn would be among them – she was currently sitting next to Lagertha’s shieldmaidens, ignoring Floki’s story, with her dress-sleeve rolled up to her shoulder to show them her new tattoo. All of the warriors had them, and not just warriors. Thorunn’s was circular, a sort of forked snowflake. Athelstan told her that it was a charm that meant protection in battle.

‘Did it hurt?’ Sansa had asked. She had been one of the first to be shown it.

Thorunn had looked at Sansa like she was an idiot. ‘Yes. But not as much as someone cutting you to pieces.’

‘And Odin called to the runes.’ Floki landed on the ground, turning around so that everyone could drink in his words. ‘He called to them for nine days and nine nights and on the very last night -' he picked up a cup of wine and stared deeply into it. ‘He saw shapes in the water.’ He dipped his finger in and stirred it around, his eyes wide and hollowed. 

Ragnar was sitting on the floor next to his throne, leaning his head on it and holding the fingers of Hvitserk, who perched on his father’s seat. Ragnar’s eyes were bruised – he always looked so tired, and yet always so alive.

‘The runes told Odin everything he could ever need to know,’ said Floki. ‘Chants to heal -' and he flicked wine from his finger at the nearest table, making them all laugh and groan his name. ‘Chants to bind his enemies -' he flicked at those sitting at the next table. ‘Chants to put out fires -' wine hissed on the flames –‘chants to kill foul magic-’ a drop at Torstein - ‘and to win and keep a lover.’ And he turned to Sansa and Athelstan with a spider-legged grin, and unceremoniously speckled them. Sansa smiled at her knees and wiped wine off her eyelash.

Now Floki’s hand was in the air as if gathering locks of hair. ‘And Odin said these words –‘

‘- Then I began to grow rich with thought.’ Rollo’s voice, like warmed wine, though she could not see where he was. ‘And feasted on wisdom until I was fat.’ There – standing up from the other end of the longhouse. With smiles, everyone was turning to him. 

It made her stomach ache to see him there, so comfortable and calm. And reciting verse – she had never heard him do that. 

‘A word led me on from a word to a word. A deed led me on from a deed to a deed.’ The sounds of his tongue made her think of raindrops on damp oak-trunks, heavy raindrops on leaves. 

A different Rollo again. One who could command a room with just words, who made even his brother smile. Ragnar was picking at the wood at the base of his throne and grinning as he listened. Athelstan shifted against her and she blinked her thoughts away, smiled at him.

The room had hushed completely. Even Thorunn had stopped showing off her arm. ‘So Odin carved these words from thunder, before the eyes of all his throng. On the ninth day he rose from darkness, on the ninth day he learnt light’s song.’ And he smiled slowly, and sat back down as cups were raised and voices lifted again.

Sansa put her finger to her lips and placed a drop of bitter wine on her tongue.

***

You had girls either side of you, one who you had slept with once, another who you had not yet tried out. At least, you didn’t think you had – she was hanging onto your arm as if she had done it before. The girl on your left had white-blonde hair like catkins and a space between her teeth you could fit a twig through. The other had brown hair to her shoulders and a laugh like a ewe giving birth. You thought about which one you’d have first, which one would watch. 

You saw the priest leave, his arm outstretched as the _raf refr_ held onto it, shaking his head a little. His battle-wounds had made him weak. Weaker than you ever would have been. Sansa was left on her own, looking into her wine-cup.

Wolf-visions. You did not know what this meant, but she had meant it. Why would she go to the seer, a man she was frightened of, if it was only to ask him an untruth? 

‘Tell me that bit again,’ said Dagmar, the gap-toothed girl. ‘Odin’s lessons of love.’

‘No, tell me about the battle in England,’ said the other one. You had forgotten her name already. ‘The time you all surrounded the soldiers in the forest.’

You could not be bothered to talk at all. 

One of them puts a finger on the back of your neck. ‘Did you wear a tunic, Rollo?’

‘Yes, I wore a tunic.’ You looked up again and the fox-hair was gone. She had followed Athelstan after all. Of course she had. The short priest with the long mind. You were only good for teaching her to hold a sword the right way round.

‘But why, Rollo? You look so good without it.’ They both laughed loudly.

‘If you promise to stop screeching like a barnful of hens, maybe I will tell you something. Maybe I will take you both to my house and tell you all the stories you want.’ And roll them over as you would a sheep you were about to shear, and -

‘Hello.’ Sansa was there, at the edge of the table, smiling at the girls. Looking at you.

You took your hand away from Dagmar’s thigh.

‘Hello,’ said the brown-haired one, the word drawn out like a dove-call. 

Dagmar leaned forward on her elbows. Pumpkins would have had a better time staying in the front of her dress. ‘Are you going to England tomorrow?’

‘No.’ Sansa’s look was calm. The dull-blue dress she was wearing made her eyes as bright as speedwell flowers.

‘But why not? You have been training.’ Too much mead in her voice. She was teasing her.

‘I am not good enough yet.’ A glance to you.

You didn’t say anything. It would not be right to pretend any different. She was not ready – she would be cut down on the second sword-stroke.

The girls gazed at her for a moment longer, before Dagmar put her hand on your shoulder. ‘Come on, Rollo, tell us Odin’s love lessons. I bet you know every one as well as you know how to use your - sword.’ 

The brown-haired girl spat ale onto the table.

You shrugged Dagmar off. ‘Another time. And I use an axe.’

‘Even better.' Another snort. 'Come on, you _said_. You said you would tell us all the stories we wanted if we -' 

You didn’t look at her. ‘Go away.’

Dagmar made a noise like a crane with a broken leg, stood up and pulled her friend away.

Sansa was still staring at you, her fingers little birdcages on the table. ‘I – liked your poem.’

‘It is not my poem. It is Odin’s.’

‘I liked how you said it.’ You remembered how she looked at you the other day on the beach, making your bones float away from themselves, knowing exactly what she was doing. 

You shifted over a little. Just a little.

***

Hip. Knee. Shoulder. Elbow. These were all the places their bodies touched as they sat side by side on the bench. He had not left her much room and, whilst pretending not to have noticed, she mapped each point of contact, places where fire-ash seemed to be smouldering. Elbow. Shoulder. Knee. Hip.

Gods, what was she doing? Athelstan had wanted her to go with him and she had wanted him to stay at the feast, and – stubbornness had weighted her bones. She couldn’t bear to go without seeing Rollo properly before they sailed tomorrow.

‘You will one day.’

She had been studying the patterns on his forearm where his sleeve had gathered up, the dark snake-twists and coils. She was closer to him than she had been in all their training. ‘What?’ 

Rollo was looking at her. ‘One day you will be a shieldmaiden.’

‘Do you think so?’ With a heart-plunge she saw that he had a few freckles on his nose. 

He gave the slightest nod. ‘Keep practising.’

And she knew she would, because if _he_ believed in her, then perhaps she could be.

Ragnar was suddenly there, his hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘You look better, Fenrir.’

Rollo’s smile seemed that of a brother, father and friend all at once. ‘And you look drunk, brother.’

Ragnar was swaying a little, a flag in the wind. ‘What of it. I can drink once in while.’ He rolled his eyes once like a mad bull. 

‘You can. And you can watch everything you drink dance on the waves tomorrow morning.’ 

Ragnar gave a scrunched shrug-smile, his shoulders and his mouth almost sewn up together, and weaved away.

Rollo laughed quietly through his nose, looking at his drink. 

‘Why did he call you Fenrir?’ Sansa asked. The great wolf who killed Odin at Ragnarok. It did not seem like a friendly name for Ragnar to give his brother.

Rollo’s smile disappeared. ‘It is because I cut off the arms of King Horik’s brother. It is a story about Fenrir. I will tell you another time.’

Sansa thought about him whispering stories into her ear as he held her, his beard at the curve of her neck, breath at her cheek. Like nestling into the hollow of a tree. Gods. The warmth of him was making her feel drunk. ‘You like wolves.’ She sounded like an idiot. 

He raised his eyebrows at her. 

‘You have a wolf on one of your tunics. And -' her eyes darted past him. ‘On your skin.’

He looked at her for a long moment, before giving a hint of a half-smile that was soon taken up with the chicken leg he stuffed into his mouth. At least he was eating again. ‘All of these are to do with wolves.’ He gestured to his upper arms, and she thought faintly about putting her fingers around one of them. ‘These are the wolves that chase the sun and the moon across the sky. Hati and Sköll.’

She listened to him talk about his tattoos, a velvety pride in his voice, and thought about being painted onto his skin, her own wolf-self there on the curve of his bicep, or his chest. 

He put the chicken bone down. ‘Is it true? You become a wolf?’

‘I don’t know what I do. That’s what it feels like. I know it sounds stupid.’ 

‘It doesn’t sound stupid.’ 

He had a very thin plait at the front of his hair from his temple. She wondered if he had made it or if someone else had. She pictured sitting behind him, tugging and twisting a lock, and his head moving with it, and him smiling at her -

‘My name means wolf.’

A sharp-edged rock gashed her belly. ‘Does it?’

He sat back, sighing, his elbow coming away from hers, his shoulder too. ‘Yes. Famous wolf.’ His eyes turned to cloudy ale for a moment and she knew he was thinking of his brother. 

Fenrir. Hati and Sköll. Famous wolf. They were more alike than she could have imagined when she had first encountered him, barging into her in the village, when she had no words to grasp at. 

‘Rollo -' the last time she had said his name was to use it as a weapon, the sweetly-offered spoonful before the sword-lunge when she cut his arm. Now when she said it she thought _wolf_. Now she had hardly any words to grasp at again. 

He leaned his elbows on the table, staring at her. The press of his knee against hers. She was sure he was thinking the same thing. _Wolf_. His eyes flickered to her mouth.

‘I -' she swallowed. ‘I have to get some air.’ Her hip came away from his, her knee. 

She got out of there as fast as she could.

***

By the end of the time sitting next to Sansa you could have taken one of the priest’s charcoal sticks and drawn her, down to the every last stitch of her dress. Every time she was looking somewhere else, you gulped her.

Her wrist, whalebone-pale, peeking out of her sleeve. A single freckle at the base of her hand, egg-blue veins forking either side of it. Her hair draped over one shoulder like a fox-tail. Three hairs astray, fine as thread-shine. You could smell her, too, and wondered if you had as much wolf in you as she seemed to do. There was sweet onion and flour and something fresher, something off the mountain-field.

Neither of you ever moved, pressed together amongst the others, the talking and laughing and shouting happening around you as if it was a different realm. Her elbow against yours. Your hipbone against the flesh of her.

She dreamed wolf. She _was_ wolf, or thought she was. Aslaug had the sight, like her father before her. Sansa seemed to have something too. And it was your animal. _Your_ fylgja.

 _Raf-refr. Úlfr_.

***

Gods and seven hells and Thor’s hammer and – what was she doing? She was with Athelstan. _Athelstan_. She had kissed him and lain with him and explored all his slick edges, and her own, and they could talk all night, and Rollo had wolfblood running through his veins, and – 

Sansa walked very quickly to the far end of the village, where the sea was at its most shallow, making little ale-slurps in the dark. The water was the colour of burnt wood-ash, the colour of Rollo’s tattoos – and seven hells and piss-shit. She had to stop _thinking_ about him. Hearing of his connections to wolves had quickened something in her. He lived them almost as much as she had started to. They shared a -

Wait. Something had changed out on the water. There was a sheen to it. For a moment Sansa thought it must be attackers again, the bobbing torches of longships but - this was different. The light was not like stars, but something low and spreading. A green light. Wildfire.

She was rooted to the spot. It couldn't be. Tyrion - come to find her, come to wreak havoc on this tiny village. On her village. Her old world spilling into this one. But then - her skin ice-pricked, thousands of tiny spikes rushing over her as she stared out to sea.

The light spread into the sky. There was a low arc of pale green light, the colour of dried ferns, and achingly, as if time had become slow mud, it rose.

Her gasp was echoed in the shape that swelled like an open mouth. The sky flooded with otherworldly green light, a great spill of it, as if the night has been cut with a blade. The water sang the sky’s greenness back, a paler shadow.

It couldn't be real, the sky this colour, pulling low clouds in towards its heart. Sansa stood gazing at it. And then – she held her breath.

It danced.

***

Ragnar holds Ragnvald up on his elbows, whispering into his ear. 'It is the Valkyries, galloping across the sky. They are taking the dead into Valhalla. Look. See how the light hits their helmets.' He points upwards as the shadows flit and shiver, and he thinks of One-Eye and of Lif and of Jarl Borg, and of all the men and women who have died in his battles.

The villagers come out to watch, bringing their shawls and cloaks around themselves, gathering arms inwards, folding into their loved ones to watch the miracle-night.

***

Great beings - giants and wolves, warriors and maidens, were flinging themselves across the sky. Small fronds of new colour spun away from the arc - a darker wet-green, lavender, pomegranate red, blushing crimson. It felt as if it should make a great sound and yet the only noise was the murmuring of the villagers, their still, dark shadows further away in the centre of the village, or at doorways. 

Sansa could hardly breathe. Never in all her life had she seen something so magical. It held her as if she was cradled in its palm. Or perhaps she was hanging suspended, upside down, searching the sky's shapes for answers. 

A crunch of a heavy foot on the sand behind her. Something made her stay still, to not turn around. Another single step, coming closer. She knew it was him. Her wolf-sense told her.

He didn't say anything. His presence was like a cloak on her back, a fur laid over her shoulders. She was made of stone, her chin tilted upwards slightly, hands seeking warmth under her elbows. 

Ghoulish faces were in the sky, swirling skirts, wings that swooped and seemed destined to engulf her. She let out a jagged breath.

'Are you frightened?' His voice was darkness inked onto darkness.

She shivered. 'No.' Her word seemed to place itself carefully in the air, in a space made for it alone. 

A step closer and he was there behind her. An arm around her waist, over her own arm. The lights twisted in on themselves, furling and unfurling. The edge of her cloak at her neck was moved slightly. Cold air on her skin. 

And she thought _Athelstan_ , just for a moment, as the sky’s light became tinged with purple and plumed into two feathers, as she felt him lean down and place his lips on her neck.

He kissed her once, just there on its low curve, and she kept watching the sky. The tail of a peacock, fanning out. Swan-wings. Bats. His mouth was on the corner of her jaw, his teeth grazing the bone, and she felt the light seep into her, its greens and its purples winding through her blood. He stayed behind her, not kissing her anymore, his warm wolf-breath on her cheek, his beard at her neck. 

And then the night's chill was at her back again, on her throat. Footsteps, disappearing.

***

The strange lights that sometimes fell into the sky came to tell their stories.

She caused it. She sent foxes running into the mountains and their tails flicked the last snow into the sky, and it sparked and danced.

You tasted her. Just a little. Her salt-skin and soft hair. The coolness of daffodils on your mouth. And you wondered, just for a heartbeat, if it was Siggy in the sky, stomping her feet, and found your way out of it, out of her, just for now.

***

The sky moved like sifted flour, blinking, shimmering, and slowly the dark-moss colours returned. Night returning from a dream. 

And still Sansa did not move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> The nine night-long festival of _**Walpurgis**_ ends on April 30th with Walpurgisnight – it was on the ninth night that Odin, who had hung himself upon Yggdrasil, had the revelation of the Runes, and ritually died for an instant. At this moment the light of the nine realms is extinguished and chaos reigns. At the stroke of midnight, the light returns. Walpurgisnight is also the last night of the six months of the Wild Hunt and the dead roam upon the earth.
> 
> For Rollo’s verse, I took excerpts from the _**Hávamál**_ , the long poem called ‘The Words of Odin’ or ‘The Words of the High One’; it is from the Elder or Poetic Edda. I did my own translation, gleaned from looking at others’ - WH Auden does a nice one!
> 
> Here’s the bits Rollo says in Old Norse!
> 
> Þá nam ek frævask  
> ok fróðr vera  
> ok vaxa ok vel hafask  
> orð mér af orði  
> orðs leitaði  
> verk mér af verki  
> verks leitaði
> 
> svá Þundr um reist  
> fyr þjóða rök  
> þar hann upp um reis  
> er hann aptr of kom 
> 
> **Skywatch** :
> 
> The Old Norse word for the aurora borealis is **_norðrljós_** \- ‘northern lights’. I had thought that there would be some great story explaining this celestial occurrence, but there is very little! However, the aurora borealis certainly would have been best seen at the end of April, so I thought I’d tie it in with Walpurgisnight.
> 
> I did find a little something about the lights were described as being the glow or reflection from the helmets, armor and weapons of the Valkyries as they galloped across the night sky, leading fallen warriors to Vallhalla. In Finland, the lights were thought to be caused by fox-tails swooshing through the snow as they ran, causing sparks to fly into the sky. Which seemed pretty perfect.
> 
>  **Old Norse Language School** :
> 
>  _ **Úlfr**_ means wolf.
> 
>  **Norse wildflower seminar** :
> 
>  
> 
> [ _**Alpine Speedwell!**_](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-blue/alpine-speedwell.htm)
> 
>  
> 
>  **Tattoo titbit** :
> 
> I chose the Nordic rune talisman Aegishjalmur for Thorunn’s tattoo – known as the ‘helm of awe’, it gives protection in battle. Bjork has it! [Here's a pic.](https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4134/4887450957_4718e4c36c_z.jpg)
> 
> **Name nugget** :
> 
> It’s fun choosing names for incidental characters. Dagmar means ‘maid of the day’ in Old Norse.


	30. Sansa And England Part One

The snow had now gone. Colour that was a sweeter version of the dusty, hot shades at King’s Landing remained – mint greens, dusky purples, pinks that had ground almonds in them. Sansa had heard some villagers say that last night’s magical sky had been a gift from the gods – a present from Od – and that this is what he had left.

It was the beginning of summer. Thrimilci.

The boat, now that it sat at the boardwalk in Kattegat, was magnificent. It was much smaller than many she saw at King’s Landing, but it still dwarfed their longships, and Sansa could understand the excitement that buzzed around the bay as supplies were loaded.

Thorunn was standing in front of Bjørn, who was looking everywhere but at her, until she took his face in her hand. Sansa knew he was devastated not to go with them, and watched as Bjørn took her fingers and kissed them, his eyes downcast.

There was excitement in the harbour, but also fear, the two sewn as tightly together as skin stitched after a wound. Aslaug stood with her sons, the breezes making her skirts cling to her legs, locks of hair latticing her face. Mothers cupped the cheeks of sons, fathers hugged shieldmaiden daughters, wives and husbands embraced.

Fingers gouged into her ribs. Thorunn was behind her, eyes dancing with stars. An eagerness that hungered after raiding, fighting. 

Sansa wondered if she would ever really feel like that. ‘Be careful.’ 

Thorunn shrugged. Her head had been shaved on one side, her eyes dark-rimmed and wild-looking. She would terrify the Englishmen out of their skins, Sansa was sure of it. ‘Will you –‘ Thorunn darted a look behind her. ‘He is unhappy with me. But I have to go.’

‘I will look after him. For you.’ Sansa smiled. ‘Don’t get hurt.’

‘I want scars,’ Thorunn said, and grinned. ‘Little ones, anyway.’

***

‘Be good. Look after your mother.’ Ragnar’s boys nodded as if they had strings attached to their heavy, wooden heads. ‘Protect my village for me.’ He pinched their noses, one, then the other, and one for little Sigurd. ‘I don’t want to come back and find that all the cows have been stolen.’ Cat-grins like their mother’s, eagle-grins like his.

Ragnar stretches up, sees Bjørn leaning on a stick. His son has given up all pretence of being able to walk without it now that he is not coming. Rollo puts an arm around his nephew and is talking to him, his head craned as if to catch his eye.

Ragnar holds the cool cheek of his wife. His head is stuffed with stewed hay from the drinking last night. ‘Happy Thrimilci.’

She looks at him without smiling, her thoughts both far away and very close. ‘How can it be a happy one when you are leaving?’

Ivar is bundled in blankets in a small chair, making seabird-noises. Ragnar does not look at him. ‘The sooner I leave, the sooner I will return.’

‘And for how long? You are only going so that you can make money to build more boats and go further away.’

Ragnar’s shoulders drop almost to the floor. ‘My love. This is the man you married. The man you came to wearing a net-dress and eating an apple. If you wish for a farmer who wants to stay in Kattegat and rear goats, I’m sure I can find you one.’ He peeks up at her.

Aslaug blinks a slow, wry smile and he imagines snowflakes falling on her fine eyelashes, never melting. She kisses him on the lips. The taste of summer.

‘Ragnar.’ Athelstan is there. ‘May I ask you something?’

***

She had to. She had to go to him. Sansa had watched Rollo stride back and forth over the boardwalk, tossing bundles up to men on the ship, carrying three axes in one hand. He had hardly looked at her, except perhaps once, and that one glance had struck her like a blow from Thor’s hammer. Athelstan was talking to Ragnar, Ragnar leaning one arm against a roof-awning, blocking his view. 

Sansa moved past the villagers towards the boat and took a deep breath. ‘Rollo.’ 

He turned and it was as if he had known she would come to him. 

_You kissed me_. ‘I – I wanted to give you something.’ She took it out of her pocket. A thin braid, green and brown material woven together with gold thread. It had strips of leather at either end.

He let her put it in his palm. ‘What is it?’

‘It is a –‘ she had no idea what the word for _favour_ was, or if that even existed as a word. ‘A gift.’ She had started to make it after he had trained with her for the second time, never quite believing that she would ever actually give it to him, but she had carried on threading it finely.

Rollo turned it over in his hand, looked at it. ‘What is it for?’

She could smell the pine-tar from the boat. Or maybe it was coming from him. _You kissed my neck_. ‘It’s not – you wear it. You could wear it around your wrist.’

‘Why?’

Sansa felt a blush creep slowly into her cheekbones. ‘To remember the person who gave it to you.’ 

He turned it upside down again, before handing it back. ‘I don’t want it.’

A tiny stone thudded to the bottom of Sansa’s stomach. After everything, after what had happened last night – 

‘I don’t need it to help me remember you.’ His eyes swept over her hair and she shivered as if a gust of wind had ghosted over her. ‘I can remember you very well on my own.’

A last, dark look and he had turned away, catching a cage that had been thrown to him.

***

It is like being on a bird. A bird on the sea. Its two great wool-sails cup and catch the wind, gulp it like water.

Floki has had a snake carved into the prow, mouth open, a curling tongue that will always point forward, to riches and land.

Ragnar stands on the platform, which stretches half the length of the ship, with some rowers underneath it. Fifty rowers. It is a miracle. ‘Are you happier now?’

Floki curls a hand around Ragnar’s shoulder. ‘You should know better than to ask that.’ His voice drifts away on a passing skein of sea-breeze. ‘I dislike happiness.’

Ragnar and his people ride their swift sea-bird onwards, towards England.

***

‘You’re missing her.’

Bjørn was sitting in the longhouse, scratching deep lines into the table with a knife, his injured leg sticking out. Ragnar and the others had been gone for almost two days. He looked up at Sansa and gave a great, sheepish sigh, as long and as loud as an avalanche. ‘Yes. I am.’

She poured him a cup of warm milk. ‘Will you marry her?’ 

He gazed at her, before the sunshine came into his face. ‘Yes.’ He sat up straight. ‘I will. If she will have me. If she has not gone off with an Englishman.’

Sansa grinned. ‘Of course she hasn’t.’ There was the slightest trace of worry in Bjørn’s eyes. ‘You know that your father wants - wanted – us to marry.’

Bjørn looked slightly agonised. He lay the knife down, put his hands together, placed them flat on the table. ‘Yes. He has spoken of it. But –‘ he swallowed, and was all grace and chivalry, far better than any knight she had ever met at King’s Landing. ‘Sansa, you are my friend. I will protect you and help you when you need it. But – I am sorry. I cannot marry you.’

A little wave of relief. ‘I am so glad.’

He nodded earnestly, and stopped short. ‘Oh – what? You are glad?’

‘Yes. I like you too, Bjørn, very much. But I don’t want to marry you either.’

His chest rose dramatically in relief as he took it in. ‘I love Thorunn.’

‘I know you do. And she loves you.’

‘And perhaps –‘ he gave an encouraging sort of smile. ‘You love Athelstan?’

Sansa’s mouth fell open. ‘I –‘ All her words had been forgotten, Northman words, or even her own. ‘I – have to –‘ she pointed towards the door.

***

Rain and wind and sea-spray became one, little leather-lashes of salt on your cheeks, though you were up on the half-platform, not cradled in the sea as you would normally be.

The creak of the sail, like a tree full of woodpeckers. The moon-path on the water at night and the swollen chill in your bones. You preferred earth under your feet, but it felt good to be on the open water again.

You remembered wondering about Sansa and her witchery when she first washed ashore. How she might have been Rán, the sea-robber. That seemed long ago. But she was a witch, in her own way, with her wolves and her eyes and her ways with you, drawing you out into the night. She was a robber. You could still taste the salt on her neck.

Perhaps you should not have rejected her gift. But the only thing you would wear round your wrist was your torc bracelet, the sign of a warrior. And you would have got blood all over it. But it told you something, that she would want to give it to you. 

Ragnar was telling some of the village men to row, letting some of the slaves stand up, eat. A few of them came and sat on the platform, like free men. 

‘Why are Nokki and Gedda rowing?’ you said. ‘Why is Torstein?’

Your brother held the sunstone up to the dull clouds. ‘The slaves need a rest.’

‘They are slaves. They do not get rest.’

‘We want them to work _with_ us, brother. The more willing hands we have the better, in the end.’

You turned to the water. The last time you were on this sea you were half-dead with horse-hooves dug into your leg. The sky had seemed dark, day and night. But the gods had not been finished with you. You wondered how many more journeys across the sea you would have, and who would travel with you.

***

After the third night, Ragnar sends the ravens out and they do not return. Gulls’ cries follow, and he squints into the horizon until it becomes a smear of land. 

He and Floki look at Athelstan’s map. The sun-shadow board has kept them on a smooth course, and the wind and the rain has not bothered them. They should be close to the one of the monasteries that Athelstan has drawn which lie along this eastern coast.

It is like their first journey to England – before there were kings and revenge killings and agreements. He is not interested in so many agreements with these people now. Not when there is a great land further west, which promises more riches and more soil than England and King Ecbert might ever be able to offer. The task is simple – to take what they have, and to leave.

‘Ragnar.’ Floki nods towards the coast.

High rock cliffs. Low buildings. Smoke curling up into the sky.

***

The bells sounded like they came from the bottom of an ocean. A wind like a dragon’s breath as you moved upwards from the beach. Your axes against your shields. A creak of a wooden gate. The buzz of prayers like a hive of bees from the church. They were almost as familiar as the songs and stories of your people, these sounds.

They were hiding in the church room, most of them. Brown smocks made of sacking and rodent-fear in their eyes. They were worse than new calves, these men who could not fight. You could pray to your god and still have an axe in your hand.

It was too easy, just to come in and begin to collect their treasures. They might as well have not even been here. Torstein gave a loon-whoop at the silver crosses, studded with shiny black stones, on the wall.

A whimper. Another. Bloody monks. The smell of piss and shit was an insult. You raised your axe to cut through it. To cut through them. They shuffled, snivelled, cried out.

‘No, brother.’ Ragnar put an arm out and stopped another man with his shoulder. ‘No.’

‘No what?’

‘We are not killing them.’

‘This is what we do.’ 

Ragnar had lowered his arms and was looking at his face in a gold plate. 

‘Have you lost your taste for killing, brother?’ you said to him. ‘Do you want to go back to farming?’

He turned to you. ‘Why is everyone talking about farming all the time?’ He gave a big, storm-sigh. ‘These men are not fighting. We do not need to kill them to take what we want.’

Thorunn came running in. ‘King Ragnar!’ 

***

Ragnar follows her over the vegetable plots – the land is fertile, here – to a separate building, and stops short at the doorway.

Huddled together, amongst books and scrolls, are twenty or so women. Dressed alike, in dull wool-dresses and white cloth head-coverings bound with a thin band. They are pale and frightened – like finding a cage of newborn rabbits or chicks.

Woman-priests. Ragnar did not know you could get woman-priests.

Gedda has the blade of an axe under one of the woman’s skirts and is lifting it up. She is shuddering.

Thorunn darts forward. ‘Don’t _do_ that.’

‘Why not?’ Gedda says. ‘I want to know if they are all the same underneath. If they are all virgins.’

It is true that they all look the same. Why would these women all want to do that when there are so many beautiful differences to be found?

‘Maybe they are not so holy, these men and women living together,’ says another man, Asger. ‘Or maybe they only have sex with their god.’ He grabs a cross and pretends to stick the end between his legs, giving breathy girl-cries. The others laugh as Gedda steps closer to the woman-priest, lifts her skirt higher.

‘No!’ Thorunn punches him on the back of the head and he staggers to the side, swings round, forces her several steps backwards until she is against a wall, holds his axe-handle under her chin.

They glare at each other, the big, scarred man and his son’s little girl, her chin held high, eyes flashing like Mjölnir’s sparks.

A giggle. Floki has appeared behind Ragnar, his eyes alighting curiously on the women.

Ragnar sighs, steps forward and takes the cross out of Asger’s hand. ‘Put that down, Gedda.’

‘She insulted me. Little bitch.’

‘That little bitch you speak of is my son’s woman, if you had forgotten. And if he were here I do not believe you would have a head on your shoulders any longer. As it is we will see what he says when we return.’

They stay where they are for a moment longer, before Gedda lowers his axe and Thorunn holds her hand to her throat, spitting onto the floor.

‘We do not harm them.’ Ragnar glances around the room. ‘Any of them.’ Little dents between the words. ‘Floki may choose some of the men to come back with us for his boat-making, but that is all.’

There are grumbles but no one answers back to a king. There is at least that. The few jewelled crosses in this room are taken and Ragnar is the last to leave. He looks at the wooden cross he is still holding and turns it upside down. It makes him think of Odin, hanging down from Yggdrasil. His sacrifice of himself, for himself.

Athelstan had asked him before they left not to harm the priests. To take what they needed and leave. And Ragnar had agreed. He would not go back on his promise.

Ragnar wanders slowly along the tables, looking at the fine paper, the drawings. Marks that look like shining braids, glinting with the colours of jewels. He runs his fingers along the parchment, imagining his friend here, bent over his work, in his sackcloth cloak.

There is a fine rosewood box in the corner. He lifts the lid and some of the women shift and whisper to each other. Inside is not a bright stone or a gold cross with Jes-us Christ on it. Just a long piece of paper, curled at the edges. He picks it up, holds it close to his face. Athelstan has tried to teach him to read, and he has learnt some of their god-language on days when he is feeling more patient, but he does not recognise these shapes.

A cough. One of the woman-priests is standing up, her hands in front of her as if in prayer, shaking her head. He moves close to her, holding the paper. ‘What?’ he says to her, in her language, and imagines himself a child who has stolen an apple. ‘Am I not allowed?’ 

‘Please sir, do not take that,’ she says. Her eyes widen. Pretty, meadow-green eyes. It is a shame she only gives herself to her god. 

Ragnar bends down so that his face is very near hers, and he can smell her fear, like old milk. He allows her a Loki-grin. ‘I think I have let you keep enough.’

***

‘What are you thinking of?’

Sansa and Athelstan were lying on their backs on his bed, looking up at the roof, just the skin of their shoulders touching. The light of the night’s huge, sand-coloured moon made the room glimmer.

Her ears were still buzzing. ‘Will they be alright?’ 

‘Who?’

‘Everyone. Ragnar. Thorunn. Floki.’

He turned over a little, though it was still hard for him to do so with his damaged throat. ‘You’ve seen them all fight.’ A rueful smile. ‘They fight better than I.’

‘That’s not true. You’re very brave. You all are.’ She gently pushed him back onto his back and curled herself against his side, resting her chin on his shoulder, and a sigh came like a long-breaking wave.

It was so quiet. Half the village gone, the night’s air thick even with the clear, moon-heavy sky.

‘You didn’t say Rollo,’ said Athelstan.

A little clunk in her stomach. ‘What?’

‘You didn’t say Rollo’s name.’ His voice was gentle, searching, a torch in the hills. ‘Do you not worry about him, too?’ He moved his head towards hers a little more, so that his beard rested against her forehead. ‘I know you do.’

She felt flooded with guilt. He knew her too well. That she had omitted Rollo’s name because she worried for him most of all. Because it was he who had stirred her blood, just now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> May 1st is the festival of **_Thrimilci_** : the beginning of summer. Thrimilci means ‘three-milk month’, because after the winter rationing, milk, eggs and other produce are plentiful. It is a festival of joy and fertility (ha, aren’t they all) and emphasises sexuality and the stirring of the blood. It was also connected to the nearest full moon, which was known as the Hare, or Merry Moon.
> 
>  ** _Od_** is the god of summer
> 
>  ** _Mjölnir_** is Thor’s hammer.
> 
>  **Monastery Lectures** :
> 
> Whitby Abbey, then known as Streoneshalh, in what is now North Yorkshire, was actually attacked by the Norsemen in 867-70, so I’m bringing it forward a bit! I went there a lot on family holidays when I was young and know the site well. It is famous for being the home to the great Northumbrian poet Caedmon in the 7th century, as well as being a ‘double monastery’ ie having both monks and nuns. Whitby is also renowned for having the gemstone black jet, which is actually extremely compressed wood.


	31. Sansa And England Part Two

They sail up the coastline, far enough out that they should not be seen well in these mists - the English air is damp and full of fine grain, as it always seems to be. A smaller monastery is perched on rocks, with both holy men and women again, and they collect more fine metal, more jewellery and stones. Floki, though he sneers a little, chooses the few priests that look stronger than willow trees to be put on the boat.

Athelstan drew one more monastery, further north again. They are so close together - it would be foolish not to raid it. Ragnar thinks of the trades he can make with so much treasure, how he can use it to win the earls who do not yet understand the greatness of his plans. There – the buildings come into view, sitting on the headland. He can hear the goats from the water.

This third place has glass in its church-house. Coloured glass that works like a sunstone and which makes even Floki quiet when the rays shine through it. Bright, summer colours, flowers and leaves and fat men holding gold sticks. Torstein noisily breaks one of them trying to get it free and his face falls. 

Ragnar looks at the gold cross in his hand as they pick their way down the gorse-path to the beach. It is as long as his finger and has a blood-coloured jewel in its centre. He wonders if Athelstan would like it or not. He is not sure how much Athelstan loves his old god anymore. If he doesn’t want it, then perhaps _he_ will keep – 

Something whistles past his face. A man in front of him disappears into the bushes. 

Arrows. 

***

‘What is my fate?’ 

Sansa had come to the seer alone. The day’s dull light made the room seem like it was bathed in sea-fog, an eerie, washed-out green. There was a low hissing sound, though she could see no fire.

‘There are two paths you may travel down.’ He exhales a long breath, and she thinks of an animal that has dragged itself off to die, and simply waits. ‘Very different paths. Different, and yet the same.’

A feeling like thick porridge sitting in her stomach. How did he know that? How could he see inside her when he didn’t have eyes?

‘Who –‘ she stopped herself. ‘Which should I take?’

‘Who is to say you cannot take both? Perhaps you have already taken one. Perhaps everything is written for you, written in the stars. Stars joined together as if made by the sun. Perhaps the stars know.’

Riddles. His words seemed to chase themselves, a dog after its tail. 

‘But – how can I please everyone?’

He made a choking sound, deep in his throat, and Sansa wondered if she needed leap up and hit him on the back, until she realised that he was laughing. ‘Is this what takes you through life?’ he said. ‘ _Pleasing_ everyone?’ The word was given as much disdain as if he’d said _killing_ everyone. ‘I tell you now. Not everyone will be pleased with you, girl-of-many-gods. With every person you please, another will hate you. Njord hated the mountains, Skadi hated the sea. Only looking at feet. Gods and giants, forever hating one another.’ 

‘I can’t understand you,’ she said, under her breath.

The seer didn’t give any indication that he had heard her. ‘Listen to the drumbeat in your ribs. Follow that. Look inside your mind.’ 

He shifted forward and she could see the skin where his eyes should have been, crudely-stitched. She stayed very still, pushing her fear deep. 

‘Peel it like an onion,’ he said. ‘There is a core. You told me yourself what you were.’

If she peeled back the layers, she knew who was there, at the sweated, pungent heart of it.

A wolf.

***

Arrows came from the trees and men followed, men with helmets that covered their noses, men with deep-red jerkins and mailshirts. Perhaps thirty men. They came on a crashing sea of roars. 

Everyone was too far apart to make a wall. You dropped your hoard and ducked as one soldier came towards you, turning just enough to grab the end of his spear and pull him back, yank it out of his hand and smash it through his ribs. 

Tugging your axe out of your belt, you went for the next one. And the next.

It would have been wrong to leave England without a fight.

***

They had planned well, this Northumbrian army. No sooner had the wave of soldiers been drawn into your people’s arms, moths to flames, then there were more appearing below them all, from further down. 

It is a challenge fighting on a steep hill. Ragnar tumbles more than once, rolling around in the tree roots, but the attackers are no better. He hooks his axe around the ankle of a soldier who perhaps cannot stop running downwards now that he has started. _Let me help you_ , he thinks as he brings him down, gets up on his elbow enough to gouge his blade into the man’s crotch. The axe is too high in his hand and he has to stab many times before he is dead.

***

It was better than chopping down trees. The splinter of bone, not bark. The sound of skin splitting, not wood. Blood, not wet leaves.

You chased two men down the path, half-tripping, rage rushing through you.

Thorunn was fighting with her shield the way you had shown her once, keeping it high, ducking round. _Good girl_ , you thought, before you slammed your axe into the jaw of a man, bringing skull back out with it. 

***

Finally everyone gets down to the beach, can gather properly. Rollo is already shouting for a shield wall, facing mostly towards the sea, some back at the hillside, where soldiers still run down. The monks that had been taken from the monastery have run away.

Ragnar finds his breath behind his own shield, catches Floki’s eye. A gleam like a hidden hoard, his black ear-markings with added red. Rollo yells and the wall splits for a moment to let two men throw spears out at them. They are close, and it is difficult. Shoving and stumbling, stones pushed at by the sea. Ragnar stands tall, digs his axe over the top of his shield, hits the metal of a helmet, tries again, hits the man’s neck, and blood-spray comes back like flower-pollen.

Shoving, stumbling, digging. The points of spears appearing on the insides of their shields. They are one huddle of metal and wood and battle-fury. 

There are cries from outside the wall and Ragnar peeks out between two shields. More men are coming - he should have been more careful. But it is not what he thinks. Some of the slaves have come from the boat with his own villagers, and they come with sax-blades.

***

The English soldiers’ faces turned from terror and war-hunger to just terror as more Northmen appeared. The slaves and their guards waded onto the beach and their distraction was enough for the wall to break up and everyone to fight man against man again. It was slow, as if there was mud in the air. Sword-hilts were as good as blades, elbows as good as sword-hilts. 

You turned and a man smashed a rock into your eyebrow. Pain as loud as a horn-call. You fumbled for him, found his shoulders, brought him towards you as if a lover, made your pain worse by headbutting him. Kicked his head until the skin of his neck split.

An eagle cry and Thorunn was near you, slamming her sword against the shield of a man as tall as you. Metal against metal. Behind her, a soldier drove a spear into one of the slaves just as he threw his blade into the soldier’s forehead and they fell down dead together. You thrust your axe into a man and as it came back out you heard Thorunn again, that bird-cry strung with pain.

A sword was in her ribs. The tall man was pulling it out and you ran, came behind him and grabbed his helmet, metal slicing through your hand. You brought your axe into his side, fell on top of him, made the blade a wing in his shoulder and his last English words came out as sea-foam.

Thorunn had dropped to her knees.

***

‘Earl Ingstad, may I ask you something?’

Lagertha had stayed behind to supervise the slaves who remained in Floki’s part of the forest, and had come into the village to visit her son. She turned to Sansa, her smile as firm as forged metal. ‘Of course.’

Sansa sat down next to her. ‘What does –‘ oh Gods, she couldn’t. But there was something in Lagertha she trusted. She was a true leader – honest, wise, generous. Everything Cersei could never be. ‘What does love feel like?’

Lagertha raised her eyebrows.

Sansa looked at her knees. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a stupid question.’

‘It is not. Just a surprising one.’ She leant forward, put her hand on Sansa’s knee. ‘Do not be embarrassed.’ 

Sansa took a breath and waited.

Lagertha gazed into the room for some moments, a trace of her firm smile lingering. When she did speak, it was slowly, as if she was wandering through a field, her fingers brushing the tips of the grasses. ‘Perhaps it is different for each person. But for me – it was something – something of the earth.’ She looked at Sansa. ‘Do you understand? Something low and deep and perhaps a little muddy, once in a while. But there is laughter, too.’

‘Have - you ever loved more than one person?’

‘No. It has only been Ragnar, up to now.’ She straightened, looked more like an earl than ever. ‘Though I could do with that changing.’ A milk and honey smile, just for a moment.

She hadn’t quite understood. That Sansa hadn’t been asking whether she had loved more than one person in her life, but more than one person at once.

Lagertha was eyeing Sansa shrewdly. ‘You do not need to worry about whether it is love, or not love. Not until you wish to marry.’ She tilted her head a little. ‘Would you prefer to marry a man from your own land?’

The words startled her, words like pebbles she had to swallow. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

‘Then do not worry about it for now. You are young. Just –‘ and her eyebrows came up again, two knitting-sticks. ‘Do what you want.’

***

The battle is over. Those who are not dead or saying last prayers to their god have deserted, and the carcasses of shields, spears and swords are scattered over the beach, along with bodies. Limbs.

Ragnar sends men back up the hillside to collect the treasures among the tree-roots, and others help wrap wounds. Bjørn’s girl is gravely injured, and Rollo hoists her over his shoulder to get her to the boat.

The wind rises as Ragnar counts his dead, makes him blink. He would be happy not to see England again for a long time. 

The sea laps at bodies as they make their way to the boat – his people, Lagertha’s people, the slaves. The sea swallows blood.

***

Sansa stood outside the small house that was tucked away behind the furthest sheep barn.

She was nervous. Of course she was. Doing something like this – she could never go back. But when she closed her eyes and thought about everything it meant – she knew it was right. She knocked on the door.

A woman she didn’t know well but who occasionally helped Aslaug with the children, moreso since Siggy had been killed, answered. She was perhaps Sansa’s mother’s age and had fine-feathered lines around her eyes and mouth. ‘Hello.’ She turned to beckon her inside. ‘Are you ready?’

Sansa swallowed. ‘Yes.’

***

‘I am sorry.’ Thorunn was lying in the middle of the boat, wrapped in a blanket, rowers on either side of her. Her cheek was smeared with blood and sand and she looked up at your brother, shivering. 

Ragnar shook his head. 

‘I wanted to be a good warrior,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be a good warrior for your son.’

Your brother smiled, but his eyes did not. ‘And you were,’ he said, gently. He got up, climbed the platform. 

You were crouching down next to her. Her stomach was bare, bandages wrapped around her ribs. A rattle in her breath. The sword had punctured a lung, perhaps other parts.

She turned her head slowly to you, and you saw something new in her face. A breath of fear in with the anger. ‘I don’t want to die.’ Her words huddled close together. She kicked out with her foot, bashed the hull of the boat with her heel. 

You put a hand on her shoulder, another on her leg to stop her kicking. ‘Valhalla is there ahead of you. I am envious that you will reach it before me.’

Her breath seemed to have to step across flat stones in a river. ‘Will it be Freyja or Odin? Maybe I will go to Fólkvangr.’ She suddenly looked very young, the womanhood in her peeled away, the child left underneath.

‘Only they know, not I.’

‘Will you tell Bjørn –‘ she swallowed. ‘Tell him I am sorry.’

She did not say _I should not have come_. ‘I will.’

‘What is it like in Valhalla?’ Her words were a little slower.

Everyone was told the stories as soon as they were old enough to understand them. You knew she knew them. ‘There is a golden tree at the door, as tall as ten trees, and when you go inside and look up, you will see the roof thatched with golden shields, as golden as your hair.’ You put a hand on it, just cupping her skull a little, and smiled. ‘And the rafters are made of spear-shafts and there are hundreds of doors, stretching as far as you will be able to see.’

She swallowed again, a dry sound like old twigs snapping underfoot. A tangle in of something in her throat.

‘There is a wolf hanging in front of its west doors, and far above, an eagle, watching over everything. And all the people there are great warriors, like yourself, and they are talking and drinking and laughing –‘

Thorunn’s head moved away from your hand a little. And you knew that she had stopped listening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> **  
> Norse Mythology School  
>   
> 
> The seer mentions _**Njord**_ , god of the sea, and the giantess _**Skadi**_ , who marry when Skadi chooses a husband by looking only at their feet, and Njord having the prettiest feet. They find they are incompatible, as Njord hates the mountains, and she hates the sea. What the Hel else he’s talking about I have no idea. 
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> **  
> Monastery Lectures  
>   
> 
> Hartlepool Abbey (then called Heruteu), just up the coast from Whitby, was attacked by the Danes in around 800 and dissolved quickly.
> 
> Tynemouth Priory, then known as Benebal Crag, in Northumberland, was attacked by Vikings between 800-875. St Hilda’s nuns had come from Whitby Abbey for shelter and were brutally massacred.
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> **  
> Weapons Sidenote Sponsored by HeyYouWithTheFace (Probably)  
>   
> 
> A sax-blade is a short sword used mostly in the early Viking era. It was a one-handed, single-edged weapon, simply-fitted and often quite crudely-made.


	32. Sansa And Her Wolf Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder not to (I will have to physically restrain myself) give away any Season 3 spoilers in the comments! Spoilees will be punished by being made to lick the seer’s hand. YUMMY.

‘Sansa.’

Athelstan was at her shoulder. She was in her own bed, still caught in dreams about being underwater, as if tangled in a net. Gulls were calling, an eerie wail.

His sea-cool eyes were close. ‘They are back.’

There was a strange sound outside. Not gulls. People.

***

It is as it always is. Faces that dare to hope, most faces becoming bright as they see their loved ones again. The other faces darkening, winter shadows and rainfall. And this time it is the face of his son. 

Ragnar sees Bjørn, limping quickly down the boardwalk, his face as open as a child’s, eyes darting. Ragnar jumps off the side of the boat, his knees hurting to do so, and puts his hands on his elbows.

‘Hello, Father,’ Bjørn says, a little out of breath. He looks past Ragnar. ‘Is everyone well?’

Ragnar simply holds his son in his eyes and watches them change. As they always do. 

‘No,’ Bjørn says.

***

Thorunn was carried on oars into the village, along with the two other men who died on the journey back. You saw Sansa with the priest, the meeting of your eyes like the strike of metal against metal, until she saw her friend. Then her face became wet leaves and mud and you wanted nothing more than to pull her to your chest. Instead you went back to the boat, began to unload supplies.

You found Bjørn. He had already broken a post with his injured leg, turned over tables, made his own small house look like a storm had come through it.

‘Tell me how she died.’ His jaw was firm but his eyes were not. 

‘Fighting a man taller than you. I saw her kill three men, maybe more.’

‘She should not have gone.’ He was shaking. Blood on his knuckles.

‘She was a warrior. Like you are. Sit down, Bjørn.’

Your nephew flung your hand away. ‘She should not have gone.’

‘Her pyre is being built now.’ They needed to be burnt quickly. The smell of her body had been bad, even on the open sea.

He lunged at you and there was all the fury of Thor and the innocence of Baldur in his eyes. ‘I will not go.’

‘Bjørn.’ You took the back of his head in your hand, tried to still him. ‘You must. You must honour her.’ 

He shuddered, the great movement of a sweated, sick horse. A tight sound stretched in his throat, and slowly, he brought his head onto your shoulder. You took the weight of him, helped him sit down, there on the straw.

You tried not to think about how you had walked away from Siggy’s funeral boat, had let someone else burn her.

***

‘What is heaven like?’ 

Sansa and Athelstan sat on a boulder on the beach, a little way from the smouldering pyres. The heat of the fire had been so fierce that it had dried her tears as soon as they fell, and she could only think that Thorunn was shouting at her to stop crying like a stupid, weak girl. She felt like a husk of wheat, whipped at by the wind, dried out. _Thorunn_.

She was - she had been - a sister to her. She had been Arya, grown. And she had been utterly herself.

Ragnar had given Bjørn the torch and it had torn her heart into shreds to watch his head lower, then raise again as he walked towards Thorunn’s death-bed. He was so brave. She could never do it – start the flames that would reduce a loved one’s body to nothing but ashes. She had loved Thorunn. Her true friend.

Sansa had wept over her as she had helped the women wash her skin with lavender and sage-water. Had re-braided her hair the way she knew Thorunn liked it, the shieldmaiden way. And she had tied the bracelet she had made for Rollo around her wrist – she could take it into the next life, whatever that was.

‘Some people say that there are great golden gates and St Peter waits there with a key,’ Athelstan said gently. ‘St. Augustine talks of it as a majestic city. It is thought of as a place where you finally receive divine wisdom and the true love of God.’

Freyja’s meadow-field sounded better. Thorunn would find heaven boring and wander around kicking things and looking for people to fight. ‘Where do you think she is?’ Her head hurt. Grief like a fever.

‘I think Thorunn is where she wants to be.’ His voice was like soft air through grass. ‘Are you where you want to be?’

She knew they were going back to Westeros eventually. If they could find it. But it felt like a not-real place now. Something only written about in great, heavy books. ‘This is my home.’

Athelstan was looking steadily at her, in that way that she knew meant he understood her as much as the seer did, and maybe more. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

***

Ragnar finds Athelstan in his little shed and sits down next to him.

Athelstan puts his charcoals down and gazes at him. No matter how many times Ragnar sees him with a sword in his hand or a little drunk on ale, he will always see the monk he once was in him. ‘How was it, Ragnar?’ His confess-to-me face.

‘We did not kill anyone, just like you asked.’ Ragnar pinches his lips together. ‘Not monks, anyway.’ 

Athelstan looks at him sincerely, but with a little greyness in his eyes. ‘Thank you.’ 

Ragnar knows he feels guilt for drawing the maps. ‘You wish we had not gone at all.’

‘No. It is only gold. It does not mean anything. Not really.’ He folds his fingers together like wooden roof-beams. ‘How is Bjørn?’ One of his questions that is as good as a skinning knife.

‘Bjørn is Bjørn.’ In truth, his son has not spoken to him since standing on the boardwalk together. He does not like to think of it. ‘I have brought you something.’ Ragnar brings out the small scroll from behind him, which he has kept safe in a sword-sheath.

Athelstan looks at him with a curious half-smile and unrolls it before his eyebrows reach for each other. 

‘What does it say?’ asks Ragnar. 

Athelstan’s fingers run carefully along it. ‘It is a poem, I think. Verse. But - in the English tongue, not Latin. This is not normally written down.’ He looks up. ‘How did you get this?’

Ragnar shrugged. ‘I liked the shapes.’ Athelstan stares at him, his lip still ghosting up a little. ‘I thought you might like it. Maybe you can put it in our tongue.’

Athelstan gazes at it again. It is as Ragnar thought. Finer than gold, finer than silver. ‘It is the sort of thing you would use for a king,’ Athelstan says, in his thinking voice. ‘But it is for God – the Christian god – instead.’

Maybe they will write about Ragnar one day. Stories about him will not just be passed down through families but written in shapes, on parchment.

‘Thank you, Ragnar. I’m not sure you should have taken it, but –‘ Athelstan’s eyes remind Ragnar of the coloured glass in the English church. ‘It is incredible.’

***

There were more eggs and more cheese than ever. Thick, curded cheese and boiled eggs and seaweed. Nuts in their shells. Wild birds. You loved summer for its food.

‘I have something to say.’ Your brother was standing by the fire, looking at your nephew’s toy sword in his hand. He turned around to everyone and that look was in his eyes. The playful younger brother, finding himself the king. 

‘We lost some friends on our voyage to England,’ he said, and his eyes drifted to Bjørn, who was sitting next to Sansa. ‘They were brave fighters and we give thanks that they are now in Valhalla, or in Fólkvangr, where they will be happier than we can ever imagine.’

Your nephew went very still and bowed his head. Sansa put a hand on his. Ragnar was always so uncomfortable with his eldest son. He hid from him. You had told him he must go to Bjørn, offer him comfort, and Ragnar had just shrugged.

‘But we would have lost more friends had it not been for the bravery of some among us.’ The room had gone very quiet. Ragnar looked to the corner, where some of the slaves who had gone with you stood in a crowd, watching. ‘Though we brought you here as thralls, you fought for us and alongside us on the beach in England. We did not ask you to, and yet you did. Some of your own, I know, were lost.’

He ran his thumb along the blunt wooden blade and held it up in front of his eyes, his finger on the point. ‘I promised that if you worked with us, you would be rewarded and this is what I say today. Those that fought are no longer thralls. You are free men.’ He wandered over to the group of men and pointed at one of them, a tall, black-haired man. The man nodded back at him. He went along the line, pointing at those who fought, several of whom had been wounded.

Aslaug held her hand up and some of the slave-women brought ale over to them in the finer horn-cups. They drank, these new free men, and the people of Kattegat half-raised their own and murmured, before everyone went back to eating, and Ragnar back to his wife. She kissed him on the cheek and he smiled an unhappy smile.

Cold raw salmon and herring. Berries. Barley bread. If you ate enough of it, perhaps you would be full enough not to think about Sansa, sitting there with your nephew on one side, the priest on the other, and staring at you. You were sure she had been avoiding you, always a wisp of fox-tail disappearing around a corner, always with Bjørn, with Athelstan. There had been time to think whilst you had been away. Maybe she had not wanted you to do what you had done - finding her on the beach, your mouth on her neck. 

A flash of a look from her again, as good as a graze with a rasping tool. Or maybe she had.

***

It was hard to eat. Every mouthful made her think of Thorunn and then she felt sick. But she tried to imagine Thorunn elbowing her and stealing food from her plate and made herself chew, slowly. And if she wasn’t thinking about Thorunn, she was thinking about Rollo, and watching him wipe ale from his beard, or smile at something whilst squashing herring into his mouth. He had a deep bruise like a wine-stain around his eye and she felt fury that someone had hit him.

Bjørn, on the other side of her, had not spoken since he sat down. He sat, looking at his bread. 

She had to be strong, for him. ‘Tell me how I can help you.’

He looked at her and for a moment seemed to gather some old sense of himself, polite and energetic. ‘You cannot.’ His shoulders sagged once more. ‘It is for me to deal with.’ He drank his ale down, called for another.

She sipped at her own cup and glanced across the room again. Rollo was staring back at her, just for a moment, before she threw her eyes into her drink.

‘You can go.’ Athelstan had stopped talking to his friend on the other side of him and was gazing at her.

Sansa looked at him.

‘You can go and talk to him. If that’s what you want to do.’ His face was unreadable, perfectly blank, with the slightest trace of a smile. Assurance, or a challenge, or -

Sansa eyed the table, feeling shame and stubbornness. And then she got up.

***

You went for a piss. To drink some early summer’s night air. The path up to the forest was lit just enough by the moon, its light falling in handfuls at your feet. 

By Frigg, she was under your skin. The only time you had not thought of her was when axes were being hurled at your face. You had thought of her looking at the horizon, the mist, the grey English rocks. Even as Thorunn died in front of you – thinking that it could be her, one day. Now this moon, the colour of her skin with freckles on it.

Bloody priest. Why was she sitting with him? She had let you hold her, kiss her, and still she sat by him. You put yourself away, kicked at a tree root. Maybe she was just not as brave as Thorunn. Maybe she needed to be stolen. 

***

Sansa had found her hand being pulled by Hvitserk, who seemed to worship her since they had hidden together under the boat-house. She bent down to him to hear his story of fighting giants in his sleep, and when she stood up again, Rollo wasn’t there. A space where he had been sitting.

She couldn’t go back to Athelstan now. It would just look foolish. She glanced back to his table. Lagertha was now talking to him and his friend, leaning one hand on the table, making their eyes shine. Sansa kept walking, out of the longhouse. 

Where had Rollo gone? Perhaps he had tired of everything after the long journey, and had retired to his own house. She loitered underneath the early stars, listening to the low, near-animal murmur of voices inside. Someone had started singing. It was probably Torstein. It was usually Torstein.

Once she had felt caught between two worlds, that of Westeros and Kattegat, and unsure of her place in either. Now she felt like the stone on a fine necklace, heavy, dipping below two people who seemed so different. The seer had said to follow her mind, her heart. Lagertha had said to do what she wanted. 

What would Thorunn have said? She wished utterly that she’d confided in her before the boat had left for England. She could almost hear it, Thorunn standing with her arms around her, yawning in her ear, laughing at her confession. The words came to her on the sea-air.

 _You like_ Rollo? _But he is an idiot. If a good-looking one._

_What should I do, Thorunn?_

_Have sex with him. Find out if it is nice._

_But what about Athelstan?_

_Athelstan can come and join me and Bjørn for the night._

Sansa let herself laugh, just a little, a laugh coloured with a deep sorrow for the friend she had lost, before she took a long breath and walked to Rollo’s house.

***

His son finds him, and Ragnar can see how full of rage and hurt he is. He almost bleeds it. ‘Why did you let her go?’

Ragnar wanders to the doorway, looks out at the night, which is deepening. ‘Because she asked me. She wanted to fight.’

He feels Bjørn’s heat behind him. ‘You wanted her to die,’ he said, the words stuck together.

‘No,’ says Ragnar.

‘You wanted her to die so I could marry Sansa. That is why you allowed her to go when I could not protect her.’ 

Ragnar turns and faces him. There is danger in the boy’s eyes. If he had an axe it would be held at his father’s head right now. ‘Bjørn. You are my son. I only want your happiness. I know this is not happiness you feel now. Do not insult me so.’

Bjørn’s knuckles lose their whiteness. Slowly, his anger rises off him like rain-mist. ‘I love her, Father. I – I loved her.’ His voice full of grain.

‘I know. And I am sorry.’ And he puts his arms around his son, the son who is now a man, who one day will be greater than him.

***

When you went back inside, there was a space next to the priest. She didn’t come back. You took a small torch, went to look for her. 

The night-world shrank to the size of your shadow. She wasn’t on the beach, where you had found her last time. Nor on the rock where you both sometimes sat after training. 

Fine. She had probably gone to sleep, to mourn her friend. There would be no drinking her warmth in tonight, even if she wanted you to. A night for you and your cock and your thoughts. 

As soon as you opened the door, you sensed someone there and in a heartbeat your belt-knife was in your hand.

‘It’s – it’s me. Sansa.’ She had stood up, a shadow in the middle of the house. 

As if she had to say her name. You lowered the knife. ‘What are you doing in the dark?’

She didn’t say anything. Two flames in your house – one in your hand, another in front of you, looking like she was lost.

You lit the two oil-lamps and their light slowly coloured her in. She didn’t seem as if she was about to throw herself into your arms. You sat down, gestured to her. She pulled the stool towards her and sat far away, eyes on the lamp nearest her. You could see the princess in her like this. No slave-girl, no village girl would sit like that.

‘I am sorry about your friend,’ you said.

Sansa went very still. ‘I thought death got easier.’ She looked at her hands as if the gods lived there. ‘I’ve known so much death.’

You leaned forward on your elbows but she would not catch your eye. ‘She fought well. She fought as bravely as Lagertha would have. A true shieldmaiden.’ She smiled, just a little, at her lap. 'There is no need to grieve for her. She is happier than she will ever have been here.'

‘Do you really believe that?’ A little bitter-bark in her voice.

‘I do.’

She leant back on the roof-post and immediately shot back up as if it was on fire, a thin crevice appearing in her face, disappearing.

‘What is it?’ you said.

She shook her head, sitting up stiffly.

‘Training?’

Another no.

‘What then? Did someone hurt you?’

A small smile for her lap again. ‘A little.’ She glanced at you.

That was not what you expected. A girl who liked pain, perhaps? One or two bedmates had been like that. Battle always seemed preferable to you. You were sure that she was not like this. The priest? There had been stories of monks whipping themselves with birch rods. You sat up, fists turning into boulders. ‘Who hurt you? Did he hurt you?’

‘No. Not like that. I –‘ She bit her lip. ‘I have been –‘ and she looked like she was thinking, hard. ‘Decorated.’ 

It was like being pricked with a holly leaf. The last thing you expected to hear. Decorated. You remembered her using that word long ago, showing it off with the priest with his hand up her skirts under the table. Decorated with ink, with berries, she might have said. 

And now – she’d said – she meant decorated with wood-ash. She was tattooed.

You stared at her. Something had changed in the room. Like she was a deer in the forest, with the sudden instinct that an arrow was trained on her, that moment of realisation before she bolted. Or it was like _you_ were the deer.

Neither of you moved. You wanted to say _with what_? You wanted to say _where_? Instead you just looked at her.

A deer in the forest, accepting its fate, waiting for the arrow.

She stood up and you expected her to flee, quickly, but she didn’t. She did the opposite. Without taking her eyes off you, eyes of sunbright sea colour, eyes that looked full of fear but determined, she put her lips together and walked closer to you. Put her hands up to the back of her neck. Turned around.

She turned around with two woollen strings in her hand, and her dress came away from her shoulder blades, and you saw how she was decorated.

Decorated with _wolf_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> Freyja’s 'meadow-field' is _**Fólkvangr**_.
> 
>  _ **Frigg**_ is the wife of Odin, and goddess of wisdom and the earth.
> 
>  **Old English Poetry Crib Notes** :
> 
>  _ **Caedmon’s Hymn**_ is the earliest recorded Old English poem, composed between 658-80. Bede writes that Caedmon, an illiterate cow-herd, was visited by a man in a dream who asked him to sing. When Caedmon replied that he couldn’t the man said ‘Sing to me the beginning of all things,’ and he was suddenly able to sing words he had never heard before. He went to live at Whitby Abbey under the care and encouragement of the Abbess Hilda and became a monk and gifted singer-poet. 
> 
> The Hymn was written down in the early 8th century, transcribed in Old English and translated into Latin. It has its roots in Germanic alliterative prosody. At the time, it would have felt very original to use the Anglo-Saxon poetic style to venerate the Christian God. 
> 
> Though Ragnar nicked this Old English transcription for his best buddy, there would have been other copies of it in England. 
> 
> ***
> 
> I will award points to the clever Bex and ZoeSong for their OF COURSE correct tattoo-prediction. Their reward is a wood-ash tattoo of their choice. Done by me. I haven’t had any practice but I reckon I’ll get it. 
> 
> The second half of this chapter comes VERY SOON.


	33. Sansa And Her Wolf Part Two

Sansa had lain on her stomach with her torso bare in the woman’s house while she pricked her flesh at the base of her back, little knocking sounds as the sharp animal bone was tapped with a small block of wood. She had surprised herself with how much she could bear the pain – but then, she supposed that she had got rather used to it at King’s Landing. And this pain was not strung with fear and humiliation but with excitement. 

It had felt raw and stinging for two days since, and rubbed against the woven wool of her dress, all mostly forgotten since the boat had returned. Aslaug had described the pattern to her, and Athelstan had seen it, his eyes full of surprise and quick-moving thought.

But it wasn’t for him. It was for herself. And perhaps for someone else.

Now she stood in front of Rollo, her back bare, holding her dress apart. Night’s cool, early summer air slid over her. Her heart was beating so loudly that she was sure fighters would come running with weapons in their hands. Slowly, he stood up behind her. Without touching her skin, he swept away her hair over the front of her shoulder, a drape being pulled aside, and – there. His finger, at the middle of her spine. Impossibly lightly, it circled round to the base of her back and up the other side. He was tracing around her wolf and he might as well have been brushing a stinging nettle over her. It felt like he’d left a mark.

His fingers uncurled so that the flat of his palm was on her side, and she took the tiniest breath in as his hand slid around to her stomach underneath the material of her dress, pulling her towards him a little. His thumb stroked between her ribs and she thought of a bird, far too large for its cage, in there. She could smell ale and sweat - and the sea, still clinging to him. Achingly, his hand moved further over until he held her other side, his arm stretching right across her. Sansa let go of the strings of her neckline and with his free hand, he drew the material over her shoulder, enough that it came down on the other side too, and pulled the sleeves away. Bare to the hip, her skin rashed with the cold. With a gentle pressure, he turned her around so that she faced him.

In that moment she knew that she would lie with him. There was too much between them – it was as if whatever magic had brought her to Kattegat in the first place had all been for _this. Now_. She lifted her face.

Rollo’s eyes had canyons in them. His gaze drifted down her torso and up to her face again, the bruise on his cheekbone smouldering and blackened. It was his eyes that drew her in - not just his hand, pressing now on the small of her back and bringing her closer to him. Stomach against his waistband. Breasts against his tunic. His eyes, deep forest-canyons as his face came down towards hers, and she felt like she was falling, rock slipping past her, with nothing to hold onto, nothing but the river at the bottom. 

He kissed her once, lazy and dark and slow, and she swore that the sea stopped moving, that every grain of air stilled. As he pulled away she felt herself follow him, her lips already craving his warmth again. Sansa opened her eyes to find him staring at her, as if trying to read a manuscript. She swallowed, blinked, not wanting to think of guilt, not wanting to wake from the dream, and she saw him smile.

***

That was enough. Her half-asleep eyes. She wanted you. As if showing you her tattoo hadn’t told you. 

Her tattoo. It was like a knife slicing through your belly, thin and clean, to see your _fylgja_ there. A wolf, woven with something like branches, its tongue one thin branch, the whole shape never-ending. Your fledgling warrior-girl and her wolf-self. Her skin and your skin, bonded.

And now you wanted all of it. You rolled her dress over her hipbones and she stepped out of it, standing before you naked - as you had seen her once before, up at that waterfall when you were not allowed to look. Now you could look.

You smoothed your hand over her breast and she let out a little gasp as if she had been stabbed. You ran the backs of your fingers over her sides and they were as supple as beaten leather. Bending down, you kissed her neck, her ribs, the cool petal-feel of her. Kneeling down, you kissed her stomach, used your knuckles to get her to stand with her legs a little apart, so you could taste her.

Salt and milk. The three milkings of Thrimilci. Of course she wanted you.

Above you, there were sounds like woodland birds flying higher than they should. Her. Birds and the hiss of leaves or adders. All her. You pulled your tunic off, carried on with your tongue, found the fastening on your breeches.

When you stood up again, you were both naked, and she looked at you like – like a lot of girls had looked at you. A warrior’s body. Beaten like metal. You were proud of it. Sansa put her fingers up to your arm, over your wolves, first Hati, then Sköll. And to your cock, which was trying to be as tall as Hrungir.

She should not lie on her back. It would hurt her. You sat down, pulled her on top of you.

***

Sansa found herself sitting astride Rollo, his cock pressed against her inner thigh. He had already made her almost come apart, as if she was made of loosening stitches, with his mouth between her legs. His fingers. She had hardly been able to stay standing. 

Now they were kissing, mouths full of tongues and fingers, him letting her bite on his thumb, hard. Sansa kissed his neck, the soft skin below his beard, the flesh of his shoulder, moving herself against him, her thighs against his hipbones. She could hardly bear it. The _want_. She grabbed onto him, his hotness and hardness, and he looked at her with a gaze that was half a smile, half darkness, and shifted her up a little so she could push him inside her.

Gods. 

Gods.

Sansa drew back, let herself slide down slowly on top of him, a little more each time, and he held her hips and just watched her, let her move the way she wanted to. He closed his eyes at her every shift with a distant sound in his throat, like the sound of many men at work, far away. _She_ was making him do that.

There. Gods. She had all of him inside her, and she never felt more alive, and never more full, and never more wolf.

And as she moved on top of him, her elbows on his collarbone, her ear against his ear, she thought of fighting and wolves and Thorunn and she thought of Athelstan, lying quietly in his bed, wondering where she was.

***

She was more like Freyja than you ever thought. 

She shivered morning dew and sunlight but she moved like she was training. And she was Heidrun, keeping you mead-slick as she moved. Milk and mead and salt and her teeth finding your lip as if she had finally found Northman hunger.

Sunlight and salt.

***

It was like the lights they had seen in the sky. Distant, then spreading, turning their colours, winding through her like steam, like smoke. 

Rollo sat up straighter, gripping her with one arm, her breasts rubbing against the thick hair of his chest. She could suddenly feel the strength of him, the weight of his whole body in his forearm. His fingers curled on her shoulder and he held her down onto him, pushed his hips up more. Breath at her ear. Teeth. She waited for him to say something, as Athelstan would always do, quietly slipping words to her in with his kisses, but nothing was said. 

Instead, Sansa listened to his breath, coloured just a little with effort, coated with mud and wood and stone. She felt the light inside her bruise, and bent backwards a little, found him even deeper inside her. With a jolt, she felt a finger there, at the _back_. Seven – 

***

You gripped onto her bottom and dug your middle finger into her, and she let out a damp cry, flung herself forward, her mouth a sea-hare on your shoulder. A finger in the arse would always do it.

There. Her hips began to rock. Inside, a warm, tiny cave of her, hot and dark and swallowing you up. She grabbed onto your hair and you grabbed onto hers and watched her as the colour rose in her, rose like a blood-tide, her mouth opening, and you watched it come, that sound.

The sound foxes make when they are fucking up in the forest. Angry cry-screams that could fell trees.

Or Freyja, and her amber tears.

***

It began to flood inside her, that feeling somewhere low in her torso, sinking lower, working its way into her hipbones, her pelvis, drawing down as if he was pulling at her. And it was sudden – Gods, there – and she heard herself shout as if she was outside herself, and Rollo was pushing upwards at the same time and she felt him pulse, deep in her belly, little eruptions of liquid and oh Gods, that had never happened before, Athelstan had always – did that mean – 

***

Little tide-washes. Your breath. Her breath.

She was looking at you, all her fine edges frayed, and as if she had just remembered something she had lost.

‘What is it?’ you said.

She was still sitting on top of you, as your cock loosened itself a little. ‘Nothing,’ she said, which was never a truth.

Her forearms were on your shoulders, her fingers tangled in your hair. She began to work them loose, pulled your head with it. ‘Sorry.’

You hoisted her up by her hips to free yourself, but seated her just a little further back, her knees over your thighs. Skin bonded to skin.

She looked down, put her hand between her legs, suddenly looking child-like.

You held onto her side so that she did not fall and leaned over to pick up your tunic. Bunching it up in your fist, you wiped yourself with it and pressed it between her legs. This seemed to embarrass her more than when you had your cock and fingers inside her.

‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ Her eyes drifted behind you.

You drew all of her hair into a rope, placed it over one shoulder. ‘Why not?’ Guilt bloomed in her eyes. She was thinking of the priest. ‘It is done. If you had not wanted to you would not have come here.’

She let out a breath as if a grub on a fishing line. 

‘Did you not like it?’ You knew what the answer was, but you asked anyway.

Slowly, her eyes found their way back to yours. She nodded.

***

Her feelings were warm and puddled and stirred together, the good and the bad. Guilt. Elation. The wetness between her legs that was not just hers. A sensation as if the bones in her had softened. The thoughts of Rollo’s seed inside her and how he hadn’t seemed to think of it. She could become pregnant. Couldn’t she? How easy was it? Thorunn had not become pregnant. Siggy and he had not had children. Yet Alsaug and Ragnar had many. She had never thought to ask.

And Athelstan. She was sure he knew, really. He knew her so well, as if she was a language he had learnt, all her shapes and sounds. But she still – she still should have told him. _Asked_ him.

Rollo was standing up, pinching the lights of the lamps out, making more and more shadows fall on him. Gods, his body – he was magnificent, shaped with metal and stone, the dark tattoos flickering on him as if alive. The slimness at his waist and the muscles packed tightly into his skin. It made her want to touch him all over again.

But she mustn’t. Sansa picked up her dress.

She had got one arm into it when he saw her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going. Back to my own bed.’ She had almost always returned to it after having sex with Athelstan.

He stood still for a moment, as if listening for something. Then he walked over to her, and his nakedness made something curl in her throat. ‘No,’ he said, and brought the dress back down.

She stepped back out of it, and he took her hand and walked her to his bed. ‘Stay.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *biting knuckles in nervous anticipation* Hope you like! 
> 
> It's especially for MissMallora and Bexmorealli in the hope it cures them of their ills. And for annie_rose. (With thanks to the always-awesome JillyPups and HeyYouWithTheFace for casting their eyes over this one, and to ZoeSong for a last-minute logistical amendment. Girls with long hair - ptthtthth.)
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  ** _Hrungnir_** is tall and stone headed, and the strongest of the giants. He has a heart and a skull of stone. Naturally, Rollo compares his cock to Hrungnir. 
> 
> When **_Freyja_** hovers over the ground, she scatters morning dew and sunlight behind her. Freya can also cry tears that turned into gold, or amber.
> 
>  ** _Heidrun_** is a she-goat who provides a never-ending supply of honey/mead!
> 
>  **Tattoo titbit** :
> 
> There is apparently very little evidence that Vikings wore tattoos, despite all the sprawling-scrawling magnificence in the show. Ibn Fadlan, an Arabian who met Viking traders in Russia in 921, noted that ‘each man, from the tip of his toes to his neck, is covered in dark-green lines, pictures, and such like.’ If they were done, they would have been normally mostly dark-blue in colour, which comes from the tattooing method of using wood ash to dye the skin. One would mash ashes for an hour from completely burned wood together with water, and the ink would be hand-tapped into the skin using sharpened sticks or animal bones fashioned into needles.
> 
> [Here is my inspiration for Sansa's wolf](http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/212/f/3/celtic_wolf_tattoo_quickie_by_perfalcon17x-d59cljd.jpg), though I don't imagine it exactly as this.
> 
>  **Mollusc Marginalia** :
> 
> No wildflowers today. Just this really [unsexy mollusc, the sea-hare](http://www.wildengland.com/node/227), tee hee.


	34. Sansa In The Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another reminder for no spoilers in the comments if you are currently watching Season 3 *stuffs bandaged battle-bloody fist in mouth*... and no, I am not writing for the show. Though perhaps I am the seer. You heard it here first.

Sansa did not sleep. She had let herself be taken to Rollo’s bed, he sliding in behind her. He had eased an arm under her neck, the other pulling her into him, as if he’d done it many times before. The size of him, his warmth – it was like being in the embrace of a half-hibernating bear. 

The night had been full of tiny sounds and sensations. Rollo’s teeth, scutting together a little as he slept. The skin of his forearm where it rested under her head, as smooth as a sun-baked stone. The smell of the fish-oil in the lamp as it had burned away. Her own pulse, winding through her. And the tide, an unceasing, feathery wash that seemed to whisper her guilt back to her, to whisper the name of the man she had betrayed by doing this. _Athelstan_. It lapped up to her ears, again and again, and she prayed to the old gods to make it stop. She prayed to Aegir, in case he might hear her better.

And when she had thought of Thorunn again, deep, shattering tears had come and Rollo had woken, turned onto his back and drawn her practically on top of him. He hadn’t said a word and she thought he had gone back to sleep. But his hand had folded through her hair, the slightest tug on her scalp each time, and she knew he understood why she was crying.

She could hear his heart, a distant giant-stomp. His heart was Jotunheim. She would never sleep.

***

It was raining. She had rained all her fire and wetness - and tears, in the heart of the night, for her friend. And her tears had gone into the sky, were coming down again as rain on the roof. Dripping in _through_ the roof. You would have to repair that. Or get a slave to do it. Perhaps you would get a new priest-slave.

You had your nose in her hair, her head tucked under your chin. She had fidgeted all night, this girl, when you could have had a svefnthorn carved into the wood at your head. She was asleep now, though, and you breathed in her sweetness. As sweet as the autumn sap of a maple tree, but with the strength of the tree behind it. She had once told you that her family name meant _strong_.

Amber fox girl and wolf-girl and in your bed at last. She had tasted finer than you thought possible. 

She had slept too long. You ran a hand up her thigh. Between her thighs.

***

Rain. Hands on her. Underneath her ribs. On her flank. On her – 

She woke up to a dark blur of rain and Rollo’s steady breaths. He had gathered her right into his crotch, his thighs against her bottom, a foot hooking her legs apart, his arm underneath her and oh Gods, his finger, sliding down her belly and deep and _in_ and she gave a long, slow gasp that made her think of a rowboat being pushed out to sea, that push before it can gain its own momentum - and behind her, between her buttocks, was his other hand, finding wetness that seemed to have come from nowhere and _how did he do that_ , fingers tucking deeply into her and she arched her back a little into him and his lips were on her ear and she moved with him, tiny rowboat movements, a going forward but a swirling, too, and his hand behind her disappeared and she whimpered at its loss but his cock was against her spine and then it was _there_ , against her, and he eased her apart a little more and there was a hand on her shoulder pushing her down onto him and Gods it was Gods he was so and it was hard to and they became wetter together and he pushed her torso away from him by the shoulder but gripped her tighter around the waist and it was and the rain and he and they and – 

Sansa felt it come suddenly, a high wave whipped by the wind, water below and above her and the intensity made her cry out as she pushed backwards, wanting to meld herself into the dip of him, to make them both into the hull of a boat, bound with pine-tar and wood and moss. Her head. Her head felt – had she been drinking last night?

Rollo was quiet for a moment. He hadn’t – she wasn’t sure that he had – or at least she hadn’t felt that sensation she had had last night. Perhaps it didn’t always feel like that. He slid out of her and - no - she could feel his hardness, still.

He pulled the sheepskin underneath her back, and rolled her over, tugging at her knee. She moved to his touch as if she were liquid metal. Fire and iron. He could have moulded her into any shape. Kneeling between her legs, he took himself in his hand and pushed into her, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut at the surprise and pleasure of it until his weight, as he sank down on top of her, made her look at him again.

His mouth, the colour of plums. The fissure scars. The moon and the sun on his chest. His hand was under her skull, under her neck, on her stomach. Hipbones at her thighs, and a deep, bruising intensity as he slid into her, deeper than just now. Gods, she hadn’t known that it would still feel this good – _better_ – afterwards –

His hands were taking hers, lifting them above her head. He held them tightly in one hand and she was pinioned underneath him as he moved.

‘Who are you?’ he said, and his voice seemed to be part of his long, sinewed movement.

Sansa could hardly stitch her thoughts together. ‘What?’

‘You can tell me now.’ There was a trickster-glint in with the warmth in his eyes.

Who was she. She hardly knew herself right now. ‘I don’t know what – what do you mean?’

He withdrew his hips, sliding almost completely out of her. The tip of him against her made her want to sink her teeth into something in frustration. She arched her back, trying to collect him back into her, but he kept just out of her reach, still holding her hands down, watching her with an amusement the colour of midnight. 

He leant his head down to her just a little. ‘Are you Rán?’

Rán. The – the sea goddess. As she opened her mouth to say no, he pushed into her, a long, slow movement that seemed to strike her core, and all that emerged was a gasp. 

There were stars fizzing in her ears. He withdrew again. ‘Are you Skadi?’

Oh _Gods_. The - what was she, winter? The winter goddess? ‘N-‘ and in he came again, and her gasp was the only answer.

His mouth was nearer her ear, the weight of him all in his arms, pinning her down. ‘Are you Eir?’

Sansa looked at him. ‘Yes. Please.’ She watched the slow creases appear around his eyes as he let her hands go, slipping his hand under her shoulder blades, moving into her properly again, faster, and the sensation of him inside her felt like the only thing she would ever want, the meeting of his stomach against hers.

Rollo let out a long, dark sigh as his hair fell over his shoulder onto her, and he continued saying names into her neck, his beard against her jawbone. She moved her hips, her knees, to gather him into her and that feeling was coming again, more tangible and familiar this time, and she said yes to every goddess that he named. 

And he agreed with her.

***

All the blood had leached from your cock and gone into her and she lay full of it, fat on it, and a little like she was dead.

You lay on your side, feeling your soul drift around the room, and watched her lips come apart, a little breath sucked in. But she didn’t say anything at all. Which was different from just now, _yes yes yes_ one after the other, spoken as if they were fine cheeses she was tasting.

Gently, you put your finger in her mouth. ‘Where has your tongue gone?’ 

She bit down on it. Tiny, jagged dagger-edges and you wished your cock was ready again, with the sight of her teeth on her own taste.

You stayed like that, with your finger between her teeth as if she was a wolfpup and it was a little too dangerous to move. Rain crackled on the roof.

Then she took your finger out, held your hand, looking at it for a moment, turning it over. She sat up, her hair a tangle, as if twigs and leaves were in it.

‘Where are you going?’

There was a long red line on her shoulder blades where you had scratched her. And her wolf, with its mouthful of branches, stretched out lower down. ‘I should go now. To my own bed.’

‘Why?’

She looked at her knees. ‘They will know otherwise.’

‘Who will know?’

She didn’t answer.

‘You mean your priest?’

She gathered the furs up to herself, as if you hadn’t seen all of her, _inside_ of her, already. ‘Don’t call him that.’

You moved a hand to the bottom of her spine, to one of the wolf’s feet. ‘Priest or _your_ priest?’

‘He isn’t like that anymore.’ She didn’t quite turn round. ‘He believes in your gods.’

‘And his own.’

A little fire-breath. ‘I have other gods. You aren’t so mean to me.’

You sat up, put your legs around her, an arm around her waist. ‘He’s not as pretty as you.’ 

She didn’t turn around, gazing into the middle of the room. 

By Frey, you were hungry. You could eat three day-meals right now. Little hailstorms in your stomach. 

‘Ragnar respects him for it,’ she said.

Your arm loosened. ‘Well, I am not my brother.’ Your perfect bloody brother, descended from Odin, who always did everything right. You sensed darker clouds just over the mountains.

Sansa turned now. There was a faint white stain of something on her cheek. ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Had you said that out loud? ‘Rollo. I know you find it hard.’

It was like she was flaying the bark from you, turning you into a stripling. You breathed out, long and deep, and imagined it colouring her shoulder. ‘It is my battle, not yours.’ You moved her hair away from her ear. ‘Are you going to lie with him?’

She twisted further round, her eyes became wide. ‘With _Ragnar_?’

‘ _No_.’ The thought of that made you want to kill your brother right now with every one of his enemies alongside you, Hel and worse ahead of you. ‘No. Not Ragnar. Your –‘ You chewed on your tongue. ‘Athelstan.’ It couldn’t happen. She couldn’t go and be with that Christian – and he _was_ a Christian, no matter what she said. After what you had just done to her, you didn’t see any reason why she would need to. 

She was still craned round, looking at you carefully. ‘No.’ Her eyes lost their sunlight. ‘But I have to talk to him.’

***

Ragnar has three of his sons on top of him in a pile when Lagertha finds him. She stands above him and folds her arms. Aslaug calls to the boys, and they tumble off their father and lollop towards her, looking back at Lagertha.

Ragnar stays on his back on the furs and folds his hands on his stomach. ‘What is it?’

‘You have one more son, you know. One who needs his father right now.’

He rolls his head onto the side, so as to avoid her gaze, which is like spoonfuls of boiling hot honey. ‘I have comforted him.’

‘Not enough.’ She nudges his boot. ‘He needs you, Ragnar.’

‘Perhaps a mother’s love is better at this time.’

‘No. It is both. Just because you were not there for four years does not mean he does not crave your comfort now. _Ragnar_.’

Ragnar sighs, sits up. 

‘He has lost the woman he loves. _Really_ lost her. In a way you have not experienced. He has suffered.’

 _I lost a woman I loved_ , he thinks.

‘Don’t even think about it.’ She hears him, even when he does not speak aloud. ‘I will be going back to Hedeby. I would like to take two of the priests with me, as slaves. And I will take some of the treasures you have brought back to Earl Borgerson and Earl Hjelmstad and return with more men.’ She makes it sound simple, but he believes her. She has a way of making things happen. Some she has learnt from him, and some of it is all her own doing, with her smiles that bind like thick-twined rope.

‘Thank you.’

‘And while I am gone –‘ she crouches down, and he thinks about pulling her on top of him. ‘Be with your son.’

***

It had stopped raining. Athelstan was sitting on the porch of the longhouse with a scroll on his lap, his fingers blackened with charcoal. His hair tumbled over one ear.

Sansa sat down next to him. ‘I – I have to tell you something,’ she said.

He placed the parchment down between them as if it were a newborn child and turned to her, tucking his hair behind his ear. ‘Of course.’ A smile as careful as his movement, and filled with soft winter sunlight. 

Oh Gods. How could she even – after everything he had done for her – _with_ her - Perhaps she didn’t have to tell him. Perhaps she could carry on, sometimes with Rollo, sometimes with – she shook her head at herself. ‘Athelstan. I – I’m so sorry.’

His face didn’t change. ‘What for?’

‘I –‘ There were pebbles stuck in her throat.

He gazed at her, a sea on a day with the lightest breeze. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I know what you’re going to say.’ There was a smudge of charcoal on his cheek and it made his eyes even clearer. ‘I got wounded in the neck, not the head.’ 

Her heart plummeted. He thought her a whore. She _was_ a whore. A deceitful, ungrateful whore. ‘I’m so sorry, Athelstan. I never thought –‘ 

‘Sansa.’ He put his good hand close to her knee, and she looked at the battle-torc he had moved there from his wounded arm, how it caught a little of the mid-morning sun. ‘You – you are free here. You’re not bound by the rules you seemed to have on Westeros.’ He saw that she was staring at the torc, and pulled his sleeve down a little. ‘You can be with whom you choose.’

A child ran past them, chasing two hens. ‘Are you not angry with me?’

His breath was the sort he took when he had been thinking for a long time. ‘I can’t say I’m not – hurt. A little. But I think –‘ He stared outwards, towards the metal of the sea for a moment, before turning to her again and picking up her hand. ‘I think we are friends.’

 _Friends_. That word had never sounded more precious. It was as if he had handed her his heart and they had studied it together and now she was giving it back, carefully scrubbed and polished. ‘Yes. Yes we are. You’re – you’re my dearest friend, Athelstan. You and - and Thorunn. Thorunn was. But I couldn’t have done any of this, been part of this village, without you. I owe everything to you.’

His smile was a tiny charcoal mark on bark. ‘You don’t owe me anything.’ 

She couldn’t tell what he was feeling, not truly. He couldn’t just – part of her wanted him to shout at her, throw things, but she had never heard him shout. Never thrown anything, except weapons in battle.

‘I don’t want to lose you as a friend. You mean so much to me. I’m so grateful for –‘ _for everything you’ve taught me_ , she thought, and didn’t dare say. 

‘Do you love him?’ They were still holding hands.

His question made her shiver, a feeling like pine needles scattered over her skin. ‘I don’t know.’ She didn’t know yet, and still she was doing this. ‘Please forgive me.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ Gently, Athelstan untwined his fingers from hers, one by one, and she thought of the last snow falling from early spring twigs. He stood up.

Sansa handed his parchment to him, and watched as he slowly walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> **  
> Norse Mythology School:  
>  ** _Aegir_** is god of the sea - one of the first words Athelstan taught Sansa.
> 
>  ** _Jotunheim_** is the realm of the giants.
> 
> A **_svefnthorn_** is a sleeping thorn, which crops up in several myths, including most famously when Odin uses it to put Brunhilde into a slumber. But I liked this ninth spell from the Huld Manuscript from Iceland, which recommends carving the svefnthorn’s runic sign (which looks a bit like four harpoons) onto the oak by the sleeper’s head. Another Icelandic spell has the recipe for making one: just dry the heart-sac of a dog for thirteen days in pickling broth and BOOM! One sleepy enemy.
> 
>  ** _Eir_** is the goddess of healing. Sansa remembers the others correctly.


	35. Sansa In The Afternoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to ZoeSong for being my eagle-reader on this one.

‘I do not like it, Ragnar.’

Floki is standing on a tree stump, biting his nail, his eyes as black as the coal-tit markings on his face.

‘You do not like much of anything.’

Floki turns to Ragnar, spinning slowly on one heel. ‘That is not true. I like many things. I like trees. I like boats. I like my wife and my daughter. I like jokes.’ He frowns at his nail. ‘Good ones, anyway.’

Ragnar sighs. ‘Fine. What is it you do not like?’

Floki nods, a little head-jerking movement that makes Ragnar think even more of small birds, jabbing at the soil for worms. ‘Them.’

Five priests in Northman clothes work around the base of a fallen tree, stripping the bark. They do not look as rough as the other slaves or the men from the villages, but even so, one or two are broad as oxes, and Ragnar would not have guessed them monks at all if he had not known it. 

‘It was bad enough just having one Christian here,’ says Floki.

Now that one boat has proved more than sailworthy, the second boat is beginning to be built. Work has started straightaway. Soon there will be a third, and a fourth, if enough earls allow it. Ragnar cannot understand why Floki must hate everyone, especially when they are making him the greatest boats these lands have ever seen.

‘They pray together.’ The words spoken with slow disgust, as if he had said _they tug their cocks together_. ‘In a little circle, with their hands together like they are squashing flies.’

One of the priests looks more frail, and very tired. Young, like Athelstan was once. Dark smudges on his cheek. ‘Why is his face bruised?’

Floki shrugs. ‘No reason.’

Ragnar gives him his king-glare. 

It is like light bouncing off a rock. ‘He was not working fast enough,’ Floki says, his finger stroking the air. ‘And he does not understand me.’

‘I will get Athelstan to come. To help them learn some of our language more quickly. To make them feel more – at home.’ Ragnar turns to Floki and keeps his eyes wide. ‘Though I think it would help if they were not being beaten.’

‘I do not think that will make things better,’ says Floki, under his breath.

Dark purple and brown amongst the trees, mixed with autumn leaf-colour. The princess is moving amongst the workers, tripping along the path to Floki’s house.

‘Why is it that everyone loves the priest?’ Floki asks, his voice seeming to slide along the path behind her. 

‘Do you think it is love, between them?’ Ragnar says, as they both watch Sansa greet Helga and the baby.

Floki twists his shoulders towards Ragnar and raises his eyebrows. ‘Who said I was talking about her?’ 

***

Angrboda had the wide pool-eyes of her mother and the smile of her father, that burnt-paper curl at the sides of her mouth. With a thumb between her teeth, the little girl sat on Sansa’s knee, as plump as summer fruit.

After seeing Athelstan, Sansa had climbed the forest path, her calves stretching taut. The sharp green fern-scents and the cooler air of the hills had soothed her guilt. A little. But no matter where she looked, she saw Rollo - in the hollows and dips of earth and tree-root, in the curve of the bark. And she _felt_ him. He had left imprints like a thumb in mud. She could still feel his warmth on her ear, his lips. She could still feel him inside her.

Helga brought two cups of rosemary tea and set them down on the table. ‘It is nice to be visited to by you, Sansa,’ she said. ‘Though I do not why I have the pleasure of your company.’

Helga had never been anything but gentle and warm. And with Thorunn gone - 

She hooked Angrboda in her arm as she reached for her cup. ‘I – it is a woman’s question.’

Helga did not giggle, or look alarmed. ‘Of course.’ 

She suddenly wished desperately for her mother. Her mother, brushing her hair before bed, telling her of the ways she would behave when she was a lady at court. Or perhaps not. What would her mother have thought of Sansa lying with a man who was not her husband? The _second_ man she had lain with who was not her husband? Or with a man like Rollo at all?

Sansa put her nose to Angrboda’s hair. ‘I – how does a woman not get pregnant?’

Helga gave the merest raise of an eyebrow and stirred a little honey into her own cup. ‘There are ways. The healer-women say that lily root and rue in hot water, drunk soon afterwards, will stay a child. Of course, a man might not always lay his seed inside the woman. But we know how many men like to do that.’ A butter-coloured smile. Bright eyes, ringed black.

Sansa hoped Helga believed her own returned smile. Athelstan. He had been so good to her, without ever explaining why. 

‘And of course you may go by the moon.’

Helga explained a little further. Sansa felt ashamed that she did not know enough of this herself. That she had entered into - _everything_ without understanding the questions and answers of her own body. She listened, carefully, and breathed in the curdled milk smell of Angrboda‘s skin.

Helga leant forward and put a hand on Sansa’s foot. ‘Do not worry. If you have not fallen pregnant yet, then perhaps Freyja has other plans for you for a while. You can talk to her about it. If you do not want to talk to Athelstan.’

Sansa looked at her knees. Gods. She should tell her that it was not Athelstan she asked for. But she couldn’t – not yet. Soon, perhaps everyone would know. But she didn’t have be the one to tell them.

***

Ragnar finds his brother kneeling on his own roof with a stone hammer in one hand. He is without his tunic - though there are no girls around, Ragnar thinks, feeding himself a little smile.

‘I need you to talk to the earls. Take them some of our English treasures.’

Rollo looks down at him. ‘Lagertha is already doing that.’

‘Yes, but she cannot cross the whole country on her own. We need to visit the earls in the north-west again. At Struer and Thisted.’

Rollo lays his hammer by his leg and frowns. ‘Why do I have to go?’

‘Because you are my brother. You are respected.’ He does not say _feared_ in case he gets insulted. It is easy to insult him. Like spitting on a fire.

‘Perhaps I do not want to go.’ He squints up into the sun.

‘You were happy to last time.’

‘Perhaps I have things to do here.’

Ragnar feels a small flare of impatience. Sometimes his brother is like a child. The time they fought for five days over who would own a wooden boat their father had carved for them both. ‘Like what?’

Rollo slides off the roof, landing on both feet as if he has just stepped off a low stone. He wipes his forehead on the inside of his arm and shrugs. ‘You should go,’ he says. ‘The earls will be insulted if you do not speak to them yourself. If you want their fealty so much.’ He slides a hand over his hair. ‘And take your son. The distraction would do him good.’ His look is a deep well.

Ragnar hates to hear it, and to hear the words between his brother’s words. That Rollo also means he should spend time with Bjørn. He tries to smile, though it does not reach his cheeks. ‘Perhaps you are right.’ He drifts away, stops, doesn’t look round. ‘I will think about it.’

***

Shieldmaidens in midnight blue stood by a large, moon-speckled mare. Sansa walked back into the village behind the crowd who had gathered to see Lagertha off – she inspired such love and loyalty in people, even when they were not her own. Athelstan was there, holding the reins, and Sansa watched as Lagertha mounted before leaning down a little to touch him on the shoulder, smiling her bold, cream-coloured smile. Ragnar was skulking on his porch, twirling a twig in his fingers, occasionally glancing up at his once-wife.

A hand, pulling her. 

Sansa was tugged away from the throng, down the path and into a doorway. Animal skins hung down from the ceiling, light filtering gloomily through. A thick, dry-autumn smell.

‘Where have you been?’ Rollo slid his palms up her ribcage, his mouth on her neck, pushing her backwards against a table. 

Sansa put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Rollo, wait –‘

‘I don’t want to wait.’ His words were dark, wet bark-shreds in her ear. ‘I have waited long enough.’ His hand moved up her thigh, bringing her skirts with it.

It had been half a _day_. ‘Rollo. Can we just – kiss?’

He made a low, sighing sound behind his lips, his fingers stilling. ‘Why?’

She gazed at him. ‘I’m not ready yet.’

A spark in his eye, like a far-off torch. ‘Then I will make you ready. I will make you Heidrun all over again -’ And he leaned towards her ear again, put his teeth on it.

‘No, I –‘ She put a hand on his chest, resisted the bulk of him. ‘I’m sorry. I need a rest.’ She almost whispered it.

He stared at her, his thumb stroking the skin of her thigh. His face darkened. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No, just –‘ she looked at the wall and back at him. ‘A little. Just a little.’

His eyes were barley ale mixed with blackberries. ‘Fine. We will just kiss then.’ He said the words slowly, almost mockingly, and she tasted his smile as his lips met hers.

 _Almost_ met hers. He pulled away, took a breath in. ‘Hone wood in a wind, sail the seas in a breeze,’ he said, his mouth very close to hers. A dark, winding, storytelling voice, as natural as his breath. ‘Love a maid in the dark, for day’s eyes are open.’ His tongue flickered on her lip for the briefest moment and he kept speaking, every slow, languid word making something swell in her. ‘Craft a ship for its gliding, a shield for its shelter, a sword for its striking –‘ and he grasped the back of her head and leant to her ear. _Gods_. ‘And a maid for her kiss.’

The way he kissed her seemed to undo her almost as much as if he had been inside her again. They hadn’t kissed first, the way she had always imagined that she would when she was younger, hours spent in sun-warmed corners of solars, tasting each other. There had been that one kiss on her neck, before he had gone to England, and then - 

Rollo’s hands were still under her skirts, his thumbs dug into her hips. ‘I could eat you.’ His teeth on her lower lip. He had the same stretched-hide smell as the skins above them.

‘You could eat anything,’ she said, into his mouth.

His lazy breath-laugh was part of the kiss. ‘Nothing would taste as good as you.’

He was standing in between her legs now, pressed right up against her, and she could feel his hardness. Half of her wanted to forget what she had said, but – no, it did hurt a little. Perhaps she should – 

Sansa pulled him forward by the waistband of his breeches and the sound he made in his throat as he kept kissing her was enough to spur her on. The smell of the animal hides was making her feel heady. She slid her hand down, into the curls of his hair and took him in her palm.

***

Her hand stretched you, worked you as if she was a bow-maker. Perhaps an apprentice bow-maker. You wanted to dig yourself into her, but – if she was hurting, she was hurting. It only meant you were built as you should be. Bigger than the priest, you thought, feasting on her mouth again.

Your cock was cold for a moment as she took her hand away and wriggled off the table. That was it? No – fingers on your belt, little flick-looks up at you, her head sinking to your waist.

Even better.

A princess on her knees with your cock in her mouth. Siggy had been wanting, willing, too, and you thought an earl’s wife a prize enough. Most of the time. But no – it wasn’t just that. It was her – _her_ , with her magic and her Stark-strength and her tongue and her _teeth_ – 

You put your hand on her ear, tried to bring her head upwards a little. She had her teeth on you a little too much – grazing was fine, but not pain. No, that was better, her lips on you like sea kelp. But _again_ – her teeth - 

A small flash of panic and you tugged her hair so that her mouth came away from you. And her eyes – 

Her eyes were white.

***

 _Wolf_.

Her name.

Sansa wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, looked at it. Blood. No. She could have sworn that there was blood there, just for a moment. Rollo had said her name. ‘What?’ Her voice sounded far away. 

He was standing a little apart from her, his hand over his cock. Staring at her.

She got to her feet, hitting her back on the edge of the table. The slight sting of salt in her mouth, not copper. She had been in the forest again, _stalking, weaving through trees, feeling heat in her veins, hearing her own breath, and the breath of others_. There had been others – hadn’t there? She touched the edge of a goat hide, wanting to put it in her mouth, suck on it. These _animals_ everywhere. Their hot smell.

Rollo was still looking at her as if she was a spirit. 

Sansa put her knuckle to the corner of her mouth again. ‘Did – did I hurt you?’

‘A little.’

She felt her eyes widen. _Seven hells_. ‘I’m sorry.’ The words fell out, half-formed.

His mouth was open a little, his gaze both darkness and curiosity. ‘You were a wolf, just now.’

‘I -’ _leaf-mulch and mud under her claws and_ – ‘Yes.’

Without taking his eyes off her, he brought his breeches up over his hips, drew his belt tight. Oh gods – he thought she was a sorceress. A monster.

‘Rollo -’ she didn’t know what else to say.

He looked as if he wanted to come to her, and as if he wanted to run away. ‘I should go. Ragnar – he needed me.’

And he left her there in the skinning shed, her head ringing with memories that were wordless, only articulated in rashing breath and the ripple of sinew. Hers, and other wolves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> Rollo speaks words from Odin’s verses, the _**Hávamál**_ , again, loosely adapted by me from several other translations.
> 
> Here's the original and its literal translation!
> 
> Í vindi skal við höggva  
> veðri á sjó róa  
> myrkri við man spjalla  
> mörg eru dags augu  
> á skip skal skriðar orka  
> en á skjöld til hlífar  
> mæki höggs  
> en mey til kossa 
> 
> Wood must be hewed in the wind,  
> row out to sea in good weather,  
> talk with maidens in the dark,  
> many are the eyes of the day.  
> A ship must be used for a swift journey  
> and a shield for protection,  
> a sword for a blow  
> and a maiden for kisses.
> 
> Also it is World Poetry Day tomorrow, so what better time for Rollo to get his lyricism on... Happy World Poetry Day!
> 
> A reminder that _**Heidrun**_ is a goat who produces never-ending mead.


	36. Sansa In The Evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to editor ZoeSong.

He was sitting by the pool, his elbows on his knees.

Sansa sat down next to him and watched the evening mist rise off the water. The nights were lightening, each day handing itself over more reluctantly than the last. Moths spun in the air.

It was some moments before Bjørn turned his head. ‘Hello.’ 

‘Hello.’ Sansa had felt the urge to return here, to Freyja’s pool, where Thorunn had brought her to when they were still painting the edges of their friendship.

‘I came here with her once.’ He was so still. It was as if the pool was breathing for him.

This was where Thorunn had come to pray, darkening her skirts as she knelt right at its rim, her face bold and serious. Perhaps now she was with the goddess she had spoken to that day – Freyja’s young, eager warrior-companion, fighting by her side. 

And it was where Sansa had seen her first wolf. Had _been_ her first wolf. She had travelled into it, wolfblood and wolfbone, and returned to herself, though she had not understood it at the time. She hardly understood it now, but she knew it happened. Rollo knew it had happened. He was the first person to really see her and she felt more than naked to know it. Stripped to the sinews. 

She had never seen fear in his eyes before. It was as if they had changed colour. She had almost hurt him – _really_ hurt him. And probably ruined everything. Perhaps he had changed his mind now, about – being with her. If that was even what he had wanted.

‘What do you think she prayed for?’ Bjørn said. ‘She would never tell me.’

Sansa blinked, ashamed of her selfishness. She should thinking of _him_ , not of Rollo.

‘Do you think she prayed for a child?’ He looked back at the water. Lank reeds clumping at the surface. ‘We wanted a child.’ 

The moths flitted. And she couldn’t help but think of herself again. Of how she didn’t want one. Not yet. And Rollo wouldn’t even – where had he gone? Why had Ragnar needed him?

‘And she wanted to be a shieldmaiden.’ Bjørn looked at the space between his knees. ‘She should not have done both.’

Sansa spoke carefully. ‘Your mother did both. Is both.’ And Lagertha was an earl, too. Sansa could not think of anyone like her in Westeros.

Bjørn gave a great bear-sigh and turned to Sansa suddenly. ‘My sister died when I was twelve.’ His eyes were small and very tired. Dirt on his cheek. ‘It was like having my arm cut off.’

Everything felt weightless, as if it might float off into the air. Sansa imagined herself limbless, only a torso, all her family gone. 

‘But this –‘ he put a fist on his chest. ‘Everything has stopped. I don’t even know how I am breathing.’

‘I know.’

He looked at her, and his eyes turned from dark mountains to wide plains as he remembered her own losses. ‘Yes. I am sorry.’

Sansa tucked her hand into the warmth of his arm. There was really nothing more that she could say to make it better. ‘Bjørn. Please don’t hide away in your house. I am always here – if you want someone to talk to.’

‘Thank you. But I won’t be hiding away. I am going with my father tomorrow to -’ he sighed. ‘Talk to the earls.’ 

A feeling like a finger digging into her stomach. Was that what Rollo had meant? Was he leaving? Because of her? 

They sat, close together, and the pallid, slate-coloured water stayed silent. Freyja was not here today.

***

Your nephew and your – and the _raf refr_ came down from the hill-path together and for a moment there were dark-cloud thoughts that you knew you should not think. That she had been putting her mouth on him, too. Drawing blood and that he liked it. But it did not look that way – there had always been an easiness between them that you were sure meant friendship. An easiness that you had never had with her.

‘Hello, Bjørn,’ you said.

She hung back a little as he stopped in front of you, all the bones in him heavy.

‘Hello, uncle.’ 

‘I am glad to hear you are going with Ragnar.’

Her eyes flicked up to you. Arms folded, tucked into herself.

Bjørn spoke through sighs. ‘He is my father. I do what he tells me.’

You put a hand on his arm. ‘It will be good for you. To have something to do.’

He looked away from you. ‘If you say so.’

Still she did not speak, only looked with her gaze full of words. You waited for her snowstorm-eyes to come again, but they did not.

***

Sometimes Ragnar watches the people of his village during feast-time as if they were hnefatafl pieces on a board. He sits sideways on his throne and lets his eyes drift, and the way they move tells him what he needs to know.

The men – and some women – of the nearby villages who have come to help with the boats are eating and drinking with them tonight. Some of those who had been thralls and are no longer, who mix with his own people, and some who still sit apart. He would keep watching them, but there had been no more quarrels since Rollo had snapped that man’s neck as he would have a hen’s. 

Soon, if Lagertha – and his own – journeys were successful, Kattegat would feel like one of the cities in West-er-os that the princess had talked of. He would need to make more tents in the forest, in the hills here. It could be done. People from many different places, but all working towards one goal. Towards the west-beyond-the-west.

The princess looks unhappy tonight. She sits with two girls, but does not talk much. Picks through her food as if it is poisoned. Perhaps she mourns her friend. Thorunn. Thunder-wave. Ragnar should not have let her go. But he had seen Lagertha there in her eyes - she was always going to follow this path, and the gods alone had known where it would lead. Or perhaps Sansa misses Athelstan, who he sent to meet with the priests today, and has not yet returned. 

His brother looks gloomy. Perhaps he wants more necks to break. 

‘Father.’ Hvitserk is tugging on his sleeve.

He passes a hand over his face. ‘Yes, little pig.’ 

‘Will you come and tell us a story before we sleep?’

There is nothing he would rather do. Ragnar sweeps his eyes across the room once more, before hauling his son over his shoulder. ‘I will tell you how Loki stole Sif’s hair from her while she was sleeping. Maybe you will have to be careful in case he comes and snips away all of your hair too.’ He pats him on the bottom and carries him to their rooms.

***

Sansa had sat apart from you, in between two shieldmaiden-girls. You had willed her to come to you, and she had not. Now Torstein was sitting next to her, and her face was brightening. 

You went over. He was making her laugh about something. The words _cock_ and _goat_.

You prodded him in the back. ‘Move over.’

‘I am perfectly happy here, thank you, Rollo,’ he said, hardly turning round, winking at her.

‘That girl over there is looking at you,’ you said, waving your fingers to the far wall. 

Torstein twisted quickly, his shoulder dropping. ‘Which one?’

You shoved him over before he had time to resist, squeezing in next to Sansa. 

Torstein threw his hands up and a fistful of nuts in your face at the same time. ‘I was telling her a story about Loki.’ 

‘Finish it another time.’

He pulled a face and made a noise like an old horse with a thorn in its hoof, and turned to talk to Gedda, who sat the other side of him.

Sansa was looking at you as if you were a farmer come to shear her. Eyes as blue as they had always been. Most of the time. 

Neither of you said much. You just sat there tearing strips of a hare-thigh and looking at her. 

Those white eyes. She had looked - you had searched your memories for stories of a girl who dreamed wolf and you had found nothing. But wolves accompanied the gods. Perhaps she was a new story, one that not even Aslaug or Floki knew, and they knew them all.

Sansa raised her arm towards you and you almost flinched. But then she carefully put her hand halfway down your hair in a way that made you want to bite on her fingers. A little tug. Slowly, she pulled downwards and your cock twitched like a rabbit in a trap. 

A nut, held up in her fingers. Blue eyes.

‘Come with me,’ you said, and pulled her up.

***

Sansa followed him along the path. He was going to tell her that he did not want to see her any more. That it had been a mistake. That he was going to go with Ragnar and that it would not be the same when he returned. The way he had looked at her when talking to Bjørn earlier had been full of words behind his words.

Rollo turned and she walked straight into him. He caught her by both arms, gripping her elbows. It was getting too dark to see his eyes properly. Sansa’s heart swum like ale in her throat. She readied herself for threats, accusations, rejection. And the Rollo-shadow came further towards her, and he leant down, and kissed her neck. 

The feeling as his mouth left her skin was like chilled butter being pressed there. A moment filled only by the sound of the sea. ‘I thought I had scared you away,’ she said, her voice small. 

‘Did you think you had frightened me?’

‘You looked frightened.’

He let go of one of her arms, but his fingers only loosened on her other elbow, moving down to her wrist, not quite holding it. ‘What was Torstein telling you about Loki?’

‘It – something about Skadi. I didn’t hear all of it.’ It didn’t feel like the best time to admit that she _had_ – that Loki had tied a rope to the beard of a goat and around his own testicles in a bid to make Skadi laugh. She hoped he couldn’t see her blinking.

Rollo’s hand found her fingers. Gently grasping them, he walked with her down the path, and told her other stories about the trickster god. How he turned into a salmon to hide from the gods. How he was the mare who gave birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s horse. And how Odin himself roamed the world in various disguises – a snake, a giant, an eagle. She listened as he unwound these stories, easily, as if they were his own family history.

They were outside the door to his house. Sansa stood with her back against it. 

‘There are other gods, too. And our gods are people who walk among us. Aslaug has visions. Others do. Strange things happen all the time here.’ He put a hand behind her ear, as if it was a shell he had found. ‘It will take more than that to scare me away. You had told the seer about it – do you not remember? I was surprised, that is all.’

She leant further into the door, her palms against it. Tiny threads in her loosening in relief.

‘Though I would rather you did not bite my cock off.’

Sansa tugged her bottom lip into her teeth to hide the smile that she knew was coming. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not in control of it.’

He was leaning down to her, and she could feel herself drawn into his warmth, the warmth of his eyes, his voice, behind his ribs. ‘I will have to make sure that you are well fed beforehand.’

 _Beforehand_. Even that word created a little tugging sensation between her legs. 

‘You are a wolf. Maybe someone in your family bred with a wolf, generations ago.’

She tried to imagine a woman coupling with a wolf, and shivered. ‘I’m glad you still want to talk to me.’

Rollo pushed the door open and wheeled her round and into his house in one swift movement. ‘Who said anything about talking?’

***

Athelstan sits down at the end of a table. 

Ragnar joins him, having left his sons fat on stories of Sif and Thor and the craftsmen dwarves. He nudges his knee with his own. ‘How are your English friends?’ 

Athelstan looks sidelong at the table as he reaches for barley bread. ‘They are not my friends.’

‘What do you mean?’

He holds his bread and does not eat it. ‘They see me as one of you. Not one of them.’ A look to Ragnar that saddens him. ‘I am a Northman. And I am a traitor. To our –‘ he frowns at his bread as if it is a scroll in a language he does not understand. ‘Their god.’

It saddens him to see his friend like this. ‘You are not a traitor. You are – you are Athelstan.’ He tries to speak lightly. ‘A man of two worlds.’

‘Or a man of none.’

‘That is not true.’

Athelstan gives a wry smile, which fades. ‘Ragnar, I know they are slaves, but – you never hit me.’

He means the bruises on the young one. ‘I didn’t hit them.’

‘I know it wasn’t you. But Theowulf – that is his name – was unwell before you – before we took him. He is not yet recovered. That is why he works slowly. They wanted me to tell you.’

Ragnar sighs, scratches his ear. He was planning to have Rollo keep an eye on things but he is not so sure that this will help matters. ‘I will make sure they are better looked after.’ He takes Athelstan’s bread, tears off a chunk. Someone should eat it. ‘Why are you not with the princess?’ He leans his shoulder into Athelstan’s as he gives the bread back. ‘Where are you hiding her?’

‘Nowhere.’ His friend does not blush, or smile.

Ragnar stops chewing. ‘What? What is it?’

‘Nothing.’ 

Ragnar gives him a look that he gives his sons when they do not obey. ‘Do not say nothing when you do not mean it.’

Athelstan puts down the bread, folds his hands, as if he is praying over it. ‘We are not together in that way now.’

Ragnar thinks of Bjørn, though he knows he shouldn’t. A princess to drink his sorrow. ‘Why not?’

Athelstan thinks, deeply, his finger ghosting over his lips. ‘It came to an end. That’s all.’

***

He had gorged on her as if she were a whole feast-table, his mouth and fingers covered in her. And afterwards, Rollo had slid into her, sweetly, prising her apart like petals there on the floor by the fire-pit, trying to find the core of her.

The words came fast, like a rush of spring water. 'I don't want a child.' As soon as she had spoken she wished she hadn't.

'What?' The words came out half as a question, half as a dark sigh. He had hardly heard her.

It was too late now. She made herself look at him. 'I don't want a child.'

The air changed. He stilled inside her and his eyes fell to the ground next to her ear. The sounds of the sea folded in with his slowing breaths. He took a breath as if to say something, but didn't, turning his head towards her a little, his mouth next to her cheek. 'What do you want me to do about it?'

Gods, would he really not - Helga had said hardly any man would. But if she was going to be with Rollo, she would have to speak plainly with him. 'Spill your seed outside me.'

He smiled then, disbelieving. 'And the priest did that, did he?'

She held her nerve. 'Yes.'

His face changed, like a wind passing swiftly through leaves. A small exhalation, his stomach coming away from hers. And then the rest of him too, sliding out of her. He lay on his back, staring at the roof, his forearm slung over his brow. He shook his head a little.

Sansa lay very still on her side, her mind puddling. She hadn’t meant that he should stop. But he had to know. 'Why did you and Siggy -’ she made herself continue. ‘Not have a child?' She had wondered, many times. Watching him with his small nephews, imagining they were his, long before she had felt - whatever she felt for him now.

He remained staring up at the murky corners of the roof and for a moment she thought he would not answer, or be angry. But when his words came, they matched the shadows above them. 'I don't know. We didn’t try not to. I always thought - but -' his breath came resignedly, before he finally turned his head to Sansa. 'Perhaps it is I who cannot have a child.’ He did not look wounded, just – full of questions.

Something felt new, talking so plainly. Even though they had already been so intimate, this felt more naked, the skin peeled back. 'Do you miss Siggy?' she said, carefully.

His lips came together and his eyes changed again. Guilt, sadness, memory. But something more thoughtful, too. 'I wish she was not dead,' he said, his words blunted, before he turned onto his side, a sigh coming as he put a hand out and found a lock of her hair. He looked at her. 'But I do not wish that she was here.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please continue to keep the comments section a Season 3 spoiler-free zone!** I shall direct those who have been watching it to a small secret cave in the mountains where we can all meet and discuss various developments, whilst eating goat and shouting/weeping a lot. If you're interested, I'm not too influenced by the show now in terms of plot. This one was finished a few days ago. 
> 
> **Old Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> The story Ragnar tells his sons is of **_Sif and Her Golden Hair_**. Sif, Thor’s wife, has beautiful long golden hair, and she falls asleep while drying it on a rock in the sun one day; along comes Loki and cuts it all off. Sif never has a bad hair day (a girl after my own heart) and is traumatised. Thor commands Loki to right his wrong, and he foxes the dwarves into making a cap of floor-length hair as fine as silk. And everyone is happy again. Hooray! The moral of the story is never leave your hair drying on a rock, I think. Or just keep your hair short. One of them.
> 
>  **Norse Recreation School** :
> 
> A reminder that _**hnefatafl**_ is a rad Viking strategy board game.
> 
>  **Name Nugget** :
> 
> Thorunn means 'thunder wave.'


	37. Sansa And Ylva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With big thanks to editor ZoeSong.

His son sits apart, as he has done for the last three nights since they left Kattegat, in the shadows outside the fire. The others talk of fishermen who find whales in their nets or women who sound like sheep when they are on their backs, but Torstein more than once looks over at Bjørn, or at Ragnar.

Ragnar sighs and drops the stick that he has been scratching his beard with. He goes to his son. ‘Are you going to sit there all night?’

Bjørn looks up. ‘What is wrong with that?’

It is so much easier when they are small, before they think they are men. Ragnar drops his voice. ‘You are making yourself look weak.’

The fire bristles. His son rises and stands close to him, a hand taller. ‘You think I look weak, Father?’

Ragnar can feel the anger in him, anger dipped in sadness. Each one the kindling for the other. 

‘Weak is letting women tell you what to do,’ Bjørn says. ‘Weak is giving up one woman for another as quick as rain dries on the ground. Weak is -’ He looks as if he would like to break Ragnar, crack him open like an egg. ‘I will never love another,’ he says through teeth jammed together.

 _You will_ , Ragnar thinks, _and perhaps sooner than you know_. He looks at his palms. ‘Come and sit by the fire. The nights are still cold.’

Bjørn goes to his knees, a sack of cabbages sagging to the ground. ‘I will sit here.’

Yes, it is easier when they are small. They run to you, and they demand stories, and they believe what you tell them.

Ragnar leaves his son alone with his shadows.

***

Athelstan was honing an axe-blade with one hand, sitting on a step by the fish market-table. The town was busier than ever, full of slaves and men from the near villages. For now, you were the one that everyone answered to. Playing at king – though Ragnar would snatch that crown back as soon as he returned.

'What are you sharpening that for?' you said.

The priest looked up. 'Does an axe-blade not need to be sharpened?' Every mouthful of words like a bloody riddle.

You leaned against the post. 'Who is your next battle against?' 

He rested it on his knees, put his hand alongside his injured one in his lap and gazed at you. 'It makes me feel calm.'

You sniffed a little and shut an eye up at the sky. Sunna was in a fierce mood today. 'It makes you feel calm to sharpen it, it makes me feel calm to use it.' 

'There's no need to do that.’

You glanced down at him. ‘Do what?’

He gave a small breath through his nose and folded his fingers together. ‘We all know you are the great man. The warrior. You have what you wanted.' He spoke more quietly. ‘And it is what she wants.’

'If you want to fight, I will fight.'

'You know as well as I who would win that battle.' His eyes were the eyes of a weasel, a shrew, an owl, and they looked past you. Sansa was there, sitting on that boulder by the edge of the water. Clutching her knees, looking out to sea. ‘I would never fight over her. It would belittle her to do so.' He picked up the blade and the whetstone again, put his head down.

And you realised then, as Ragnar already knew, that fighting was not always the way. That talking, using carefully-sharpened words and honed deeds was sometimes a stronger method.

You chewed down your pride and nodded at him. After two steps, you halted. ‘Athelstan.’

Surprise in his eyes as his head flitted up. You had probably never called him anything other than _priest_ before. 

‘That arm. It will get stronger through training, not resting. It will take patience, but -’ you waved your hand at your own leg. Sometimes you still felt the horses’ hooves, as if they had got stuck there in the bone. ‘I know about this.’

His look was almost curious, pale as bloody winter. He nodded and you left him.

Sansa’s sword and shield were on the sand beside her. She looked as if she had forgotten everything she had been taught.

‘Do you need someone to fight?’ You leant down, scooped your hand around her waist. ‘Perhaps you will slice my arm off properly this time.’ As she turned, you saw how red and stained her eyes were. An albino fox. ‘What is it?’

She turned back around to the sea. Oarweed pushing up against the rock at her feet. 

It had been good, these last few days. During Sunna’s journeys across the sky, you had been busy overseeing the boats now being made on the beach as well as at Floki’s, and trying to bribe Floki and other men into not hurting the damned slaves, priests or otherwise. Rollo the peacekeeper. You would never have thought you would care too much but – even you could see that getting this work done was more important. But at night you had always been together, and there were new ways to explore her. Simple ways, too, like counting her freckles, or the little stones of her spine. And you had twice not pushed your seed inside her, like you were damned Sinfiötli. She did not want your child. This was clear. But last night – she had let you continue, _asked_ you to. Perhaps she rued it again now. 

You put your nose in her neck. It was hot and cold at once and you wanted to lick the salt from her. ‘Tell me.’

She blinked at you, wetness on the ends of her eyelashes. ‘I just wish Thorunn was here.’ Her voice was the voice of a child, or a much older woman. ‘It is not the same. Without her. And then I think of everyone.’

Part of you burned a little that you were not enough for her, before you thought of Torstein and Ragnar and Floki and Bjørn and the others, and all the times you had got drunk and fought and pissed together. ‘I am sorry, _raf refr_. Do not forget your training. She would not want you to.’

‘I know.’ She slid off the rock and picked up her shield, slinging it onto her arm as if she had done it for longer than you knew she had, and went on fighting the air.

***

Sansa couldn’t help feeling alone at the centre of all these people. Thorunn’s death had only brought her own family’s to the surface again – bodies released by the sea-bed. And she and Athelstan were distant, for now. Though he had let her go with such grace, slipping into a just-friendship was not so simple. They had passed each other awkwardly, and had not talked since she had told him about Rollo.

She gave Ivar her finger to grip again. She had found herself spending more time with Ivar and Sigurd if she wasn’t training - playing with them, singing to Ivar when he raged his storms in his cot-bed. She wondered desperately how Bjørn was - Ragnar seemed to wear the fatherhood of his eldest son as an itchy cloak in winter, something he had to wear but would rather not. She hoped they were able to talk together.

Every night she walked to Rollo’s house and he would be there, waiting for her, half her clothes off before she even blinked. But she found solace in him, and in the way she could lightly scratch her nails down his back and make a sigh like a long sinew come from him. He had done as she had asked, too, though she had acquired the lily root tea Helga had spoken of from a healer-woman, and felt brave enough to keep him moving inside her once. 

He was warm, and he was dangerous, but she trusted him. He would tell her what he had done that day, and she heard the man he could be, if he could ever shrug off Ragnar’s shadow. 

***

Two more days and they reach Thisted, which clutches its lake-side, houses right up to the spiked grass of the dunes. Earl Olesen, a man the size of a great brown bear, has made Ragnar’s life easier by coming to this village from Struar. He and Earl Edman greet their king warmly, and bring the men food and ale. 

Ragnar eats his roast deer-leg and watches them through side-eyes. They look close, as if they were once joined at the head. Bjørn slumps as he eats, ear resting on his fist. Ragnar kicks his leg, tells him with his eyes to sit up straight. To look like a prince.

‘King Ragnar.’

Ragnar straightens and smiles a pretend-smile. ‘Earl Edman.’

Earl Edman has a thin scar all the way down his nose, like the scored lines Floki makes on wood to be cut. ‘We are grateful for the riches you have brought us from England. Such fine things. I would like to see this land for myself some day.’

Ragnar chews and smiles. This man is not brave enough to see past the end of his own arm.

‘But -’ Edman glances at Earl Olesen, who nods, deeply. ‘We have questions. Many questions, before we can give you the men you ask for.’

Ragnar lifts a shoulder. ‘I am ready for them.’

***

You followed the tracks of a deer – a big one, a stag even, into the darker skull-hollows of the forest. The smell of its scat filled your nose. You became like the bow you carried at these moments, lean, stretched, ready.

Víðarr was always close to you here. The silent one of the forest. He followed you, a shadow on your back as heavy as a cloak. Sometimes you felt as if you were him, fighting your own Fenrir-self.

You crouched down, put your finger into a hoof-print like a giant beetle, or two wings. It was nearby.

Then – a whimper, tiny, less than a bird-call. Distressed. Not quite animal. You stood, made yourself a stone, listened.

Again.

Leaving the prints, you picked your way over the roots, up a small slope. Feeling the cries tugging at you like a thin thread.

There. Sitting on a pillow of moss. A little thing. Trembling.

When you approached, she did not run. She looked up at you, blinking. Black, wet eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’ you said.

Her tongue came out a little. A shiver.

There was no one around. No one at all. Leaves hugging tightly together, a few gnats and flies.

Black around her ears, too, which made you think of Floki. She looked like she had been out here, alone, for some time. There were no footprints. 

Víðarr, lurking behind the ghosts of trees, watching. Old roots, new roots.

Fine. ‘Come on, then,’ you said, and picked her up into your arms.

***

They ask much – of Sansa, more of West-er-os. Distances, sizes. Ragnar answers, though he makes some of it up. But he tells of the boats that Sansa drew, gives details of their shape, the way they sail. Floki would be proud.

‘Then they are already seaworthy, these people of West-er-os,’ Earl Edman asks. ‘How do we know they are not approaching us, to attack _us_?’

So worried, so _safe_. ‘They have not made it yet. Do you think we should wait for them?’ He widens his eyes. ‘Perhaps I should have waited for Englishmen to come, so that we could defend our lands.’

‘We are not saying that we do not believe _you_ , King Ragnar,’ says Earl Olesen. ‘But how do we know that this girl you speak of is who she says she is? That she is not a spy from a land to the east? Or sent by Loki?’

‘She is who she says she is.’

Ragnar looks at his son in surprise. It is the first time he has spoken in the whole meal.

Bjørn puts down his deer-bone and glares at them. ‘You must take the word of your king. You disrespect him to do otherwise.’

Earl Olesen folds his great hands. ‘So this is the Bjørn Ironside we have heard so much of. He limps more than I imagined he would.’

Bjørn puts his hand flat on the table. There is life in him, suddenly. ‘It is an injury. It will heal.’

‘So tell us, Bjørn son-of-Ragnar, why we should give so many men – most of the men of our villages, to sail blindly into the west.’

Bjørn pushes his plate away, stands, his head near the roof-beam. ‘Ragnar Lothbrook was told by a wanderer about England. That is the only reason he knew. This was enough for him to sail to lands you have not even dreamt of. To build boats that penetrated seas that no one here had ever done before. And now there are bigger boats. More lands, full of riches and rich earth. Sansa is his next wanderer.’ Bjørn glances at his father. ‘That is all you need to know.’

Earl Olesen and Earl Edman join their heads together. Twins at last. It is some time before they address him again. ‘We will give you what you need. But we ask this first. That we meet this princess and see her truths for ourselves.’

***

‘I have brought someone to meet you.’ Rollo was standing above her, blocking out the sun. Sansa put down her sewing – she was trying to fix the elbow of a dress that she had torn while training with one of Thorunn’s shieldmaiden friends. Keira was a small, black-haired girl with a disarming smile and a very vicious axe-arm. Sansa would bear new bruises tomorrow.

For a moment, she had no idea what he might mean. There seemed to be no one with him. Was it a boat-builder he knew? Had he befriended one of the priests? A relative she did not know that he had?

‘I found her in the woods. Abandoned, I think. I thought you might like her.’ An inky amusement in his voice. ‘Seeing as you are one.’

There was movement at his ankles and she realised that he was holding a rope in his hands, and that his arm was being pulled. And at the end of the thin rope was a wolf cub.

Sansa froze. The little wolf lifted a front paw up, testing the air, before headbutting Rollo’s ankle. 

It was the shape of a tiny barrel, the colour of dry bark and wet bark. It nosed up to Sansa’s feet, looked at her and, quick as a little lightning strike, a bright pink tongue flashed out and touched its own nose before disappearing again just as quickly. 

The wolf cub went very still, legs rigid, body quivering. Alert, tufted ears and raisin-dark eyes, the fur a little lighter where the bone rose up. Dark eyes meeting hers again. A blink of wiry lashes.

Sansa took a breath. Carefully, she put her hand out, palm upwards. The wolf cub blinked again, tar-black nose twitching. It – she - started forwards, halted, and took two careful steps towards her. Sniff. Another sniff. Lick.

She felt something deep in her stomach knot and unknot. Found alone in these mountains, like her. Terrified, like her. Brave. Like her. She looked up at Rollo, still amazed. 

He was watching the wolf cub, and he was watching her.

‘There’s one thing we need to do first,’ she said, putting her hand out.

His eyebrows came together.

She tugged the rope out of his hands, and slowed her arms as she loosened it from around the wolf cub’s neck. ‘She doesn’t need this.’ 

***

Another campfire, with others around them now as the twin-earls and some of their men rest nearby. If they like what they see, they will send for more. Ragnar hopes that the princess will convince them. He will make sure she does.

Bjørn sits next to his father this time, though he still looks at the fire as if waiting for it to rise up against him with swords and axes.

‘I am sorry,’ Ragnar says. His son looks up. ‘About Thorunn.’ 

Bjørn’s eyes flicker with fire. Flame and shadows. 

‘I am not sorry that I let her come. It was her will. But I am sorry that I was not fighting by her side, as you would have done.’

Bjørn takes one slow, night-breath. ‘That is all I ever wanted you to say.’ His words are doughy, like bread not quite ready.

Ragnar puts his lips together, tries to smile like the father he should be to all of his sons.

Bjørn hugs his knees. ‘Tell me about West-er-os.’

He knows all that Ragnar does. ‘The princess can tell you more than I.’

‘Sansa is not here.’ He raises his eyebrows, and Ragnar sees Lagertha there, in the warmth and the scolding and the wanting. ‘You will have to do.’

And Ragnar tells him all that he knows, all that he thinks of now, about the land and its kings and its wars and its riches, and his son listens as if it is a bedside story.

***

‘Do you know how long I have wanted you?’

They were sitting on the bed, Rollo between Sansa’s legs, leaning his back into her. She had an arm over his chest and was kissing his neck. She could kiss his neck all night. Salt and animal hide. 

‘Yes,’ she said. He half-turned, surprised. ‘You asked me to have sex with you.’ She laid her hand flat on his side, over the coiled tattoo there. ‘Don’t you remember?’ She didn’t mention Siggy.

She could see that he did remember. He picked up a lock of her hair and drew it in front of him, turning it in his fingers. ‘That was different.’

There was a snuffling noise. A whine. Rollo shifted and scooped the little wolf up onto the bed. She tried to gnaw at his ankle until he brushed her off, and then she sat down and yawned, her teeth snapping together. Sansa had called her Ylva. Little girl-wolf. 

It meant so much that he had brought her here. She put her hand on the boulder-ripple of his shoulder. ‘Thank you.’

He twisted. ‘What for?’

‘For giving her to me.’

‘Perhaps it was not me.’ When he saw her furrowed brow, he made his face open. ‘Perhaps it was a gift from the gods, and they just put her there for me to find. A wolf without a mother.’

‘A sign.’ It was only partly a question, as the memory wandered in. Her father coming home grim-faced after executing a deserter, and Theon, Jon and Robb following him, their arms full of direwolf cubs. Lady, snow-drift pale with opal eyes. _Lady_. They had been found nestling on their mother, the stag nearby. Stags and direwolves. ‘I don’t like signs,’ she said, her words cloudy.

‘Not all signs are bad,’ Rollo said, leaning back into Sansa with a sound that was half a grumble and half a yawn himself, and she loved this feeling of holding him, this man as warm as bale of hay left out in the sun. Ylva sat on her haunches, looking at them both, and gave a tiny yowl. ‘ _You_ washed ashore, after all.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  ** _Sunna_** is the goddess of the sun, riding her chariot across the sky.
> 
>  ** _Sinfiötli_** is a son of Sigmund, father of Sigurd, and who learns shamanistic gifts. Rather marvellously, his father teaches him how to shapeshift and he and Sinfiötli live as wolves for a while. At some point, Sinfiötli is castrated by troll-maidens.
> 
>  ** _Víðarr_** is the brother of Vali, and the son of Odin and Grid. He is known as the Silent God and will avenge Odin's death by slaying the Fenris wolf at Ragnarok. He is a minor forest god. Víðarr has his home in Landvidi (the wide land), a palace decorated with green boughs and fresh flowers, situated in the midst of an impenetrable primeval forest where reigns the deep silence and solitude which he loves. He not only personifies imperishability of Nature, but is also a symbol of resurrection and renewal, proving that new shoots and blossoms are always ready to replace those which have fallen into decay.
> 
>  **Name Nuggets** :
> 
> Keira means little dark girl.
> 
> Ylva means female wolf.
> 
>  **Wolfwatch** :
> 
> Speaking of which, [say hello to Ylva.](http://media.tumblr.com/c1606d82d15b7c02ae818c32f63bf666/tumblr_inline_mi0jft4OpG1qz4rgp.jpg)


	38. Sansa And The Earls Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Editor ZoeSong.

Eight longships were approaching Kattegat. 

Sansa watched from the beach as the dark, honed shapes came nearer. Lagertha stood at the prow of the lead boat, her hair smoothed by the wind as if she were a dragon-head that Floki had carved. She jumped onto the boardwalk, her eyes sweeping the bay for her son, before realising he was not there and smiling gracefully at villagers instead. Everyone made way for the new men and women who looked up at the mountains as they unloaded animals and supplies. Amidst them, two well-dressed men who must have been earls. Lagertha - and the spoils from England - had persuaded them to join Ragnar. 

Rollo stood behind Sansa, one hand on her side. Lagertha walked up to them. ‘Hello Rollo.’

‘Lagertha.’

Her slate-blue eyes flickered to his hand, before she looked at Sansa, a little curiosity behind the coolness. Sansa nodded at her, keeping her spine straight. 

Lagertha looked back at Rollo. ‘Ragnar?’

‘Gone to Thisted. With Bjørn.’

She nodded, exchanging a silent greeting with Aslaug as she approached with her sons. ‘Then we must welcome these people ourselves.’ 

After the feasting, many of the new villagers gathered on the beach. They would make camps tomorrow, when it was light. Tonight there was drinking, dancing, figures in animal skins and skull-masks.

Rollo was stretched out on the bed on his back, Sansa on top of him, her ear on his chest, listening to the activity outside. Strains of drunken singing mingled with the dark drum-beat of his heart. A sense of thunder, somewhere far off.

Ragnar would return in a day or two. She tried to imagine his eyes when he knew about them both. ‘I don’t think Ragnar is going to be happy,’ she said.

Rollo tilted his head down to her. ‘About what?’

‘Us.’

Ylva, beside them, sat up and scratched at her ear with a paw. 

‘Why not? Because of Athelstan?’

She clasped her hands on his chest, rested her chin on them. ‘He wanted me to marry Bjørn.’ 

Rollo shifted up a little onto his elbows. He didn’t look shocked, or displeased. ‘Do you want to marry Bjørn?’ 

She gazed at him, and felt a slow, shy smile warm her face. ‘No.’

His eyes were deep hollows, the inside of tree-trunks. Beetles and moss and damp bark. ‘Do you want to marry me?’ Spoken with a half-smile.

The words spread thickly across her ribs. Almost painful. It was - so soon. Only days. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, carefully, still smiling, as if she was treading on new-budded twigs that she did not want to break.

‘I want to marry you.’ The words were sent out on lots of breath, the wind in them. He moved suddenly, something very still becoming full of energy, rolling her onto her side and facing her, an arm sliding over her ribs. There was a spark of pride in his eyes. ‘Think of it. The brother of a king and the heir to the north of your land.’

Sansa felt her shyness give way to a tiny, bitter tang on her tongue, like green lemons. Her smile dissolved. ‘Is that why you want to marry me?’ she said, quietly.

He smiled. ‘What is wrong with that? We could join our lands. It makes us both strong. _Stronger_ , Sansa Stark.’

Was that it, after all this time? Rollo had remembered that she had lands, a title, though that felt worth very little at the moment – that she was a princess? He was looking at her expectantly, the bruise from the battle in England yellowing now on his cheek. He couldn’t see the wrongness in what he was saying. 

She slid out from the blankets, found her dress. Ylva jumped off the bed and trod on its skirt as she stepped into it.

Rollo rolled over onto his back again, leant up on his elbows. ‘Where are you going?’

It gave her a dull pain to say it, but she said it anyway. ‘To my own bed.’

A puzzled pause. ‘Why?’

‘Because you are just like the others.’ She was already out of the door, Ylva at her heels.

***

Ragnar returns to a village that seems more full of people than ever. They move to the edges of the path to let them past, look curiously at his guests, especially at the size of Earl Olesen, who seems like a bear riding a horse, or a horse riding another horse. Ragnar collects the villagers’ nods, returns them with his eyes elsewhere.

He finds Sansa with his jagged-legged son. ‘Princess. I need you to -’ There is a wolf cub sitting next to her, on a pile of furs. ‘What is that?’

She picks it up, holds it to her cheek. A mangy-looking pup with a nose the colour of blackened wood. ‘This is Ylva.’ 

‘It should not be near my son.’

She stands up, cradling it. ‘I am sorry. She is safe. I am training her.’

 _You cannot train a wolf_ , he is about to say before he remembers that she once had one, a wolf as high as her hip. He flutters his fingers at it. ‘Well, not near my sons. And keep it away from the goats.’

‘How is Bjørn?’ Her eyes are full of sky and water. 

He is pleased that she asks. ‘He will get better, with the right people by his side.’

She nods, quickly, still clutching the little wolf. ‘I will do everything I can. I miss her too.’

He can smell the promise of an alliance, as good as that wolf can smell - whatever it is sniffing the air for right now.

‘And how was – were you successful? In your meetings?’

‘Almost.’ He tilts his head to the side, looks at her. Northern wolf-girl. ‘Come with me.’

‘What for?’

‘Because you will make me successful. I need you to come and meet the earls. Tell them everything you have told me, many times.’ He steps closer to her for a moment, inhales something of her skin – cream, dried flowers – before looking at her brown dress. It is not her best. ‘Perhaps change into something a little more -’ he inclines his head, smiles what he hopes is a woman-pleasing smile. ‘Befitting your status.’

***

Bjørn found you overseeing the new boat-building on the beach - Floki had set up two large camps now, one over in his own forest, and one here.

You followed him into the longhouse. Your brother was back on his throne, the throne you had found difficult to sit on while he was away, as if it was made of thorns and not wood. He sat on it like it was made of baby goat-hair and meadowgrass. And Sansa was there.

You had not seen her for a day and a night. Or if you had, it had been like a flash of lighting, a fox-tail in the undergrowth. Once or twice you had tried to speak to her, and she had made her excuses and left, with the little wolf at her feet. You did not understand what had happened. Why should you not tell her you wanted to marry her? Why should she not want to? Odin spoke of offering soft words and wealth to win a woman’s love. _He who wins, woos_.

Two earls, one with his head practically in the rafters. The earls from Thisted and Struar, who you met once before. And the earls Lagertha brought with her. They were all staring at the _raf refr_ and her wolf. She hardly looked at you, and your stomach punched itself. 

‘Princess,’ your brother said, in a casual voice, though you could see that there was iron in him. ‘Tell us of your lands.’ 

A silence. You could see Sansa’s shoulders moving as she breathed. She was wearing one of Aslaug’s old dresses, one the colour of butterwort. The little wolf in her arms sneezed. 

The big earl raised his eyebrows. Ragnar put his head down, laughed quietly as if Torstein had just whispered a terrible joke in his ear, and went to her. ‘Princess.’ His eyes bit. ‘Tell our guests of your lands.’

Her lips came apart and you thought of all the times you had put your thumb there, felt the wetness just inside. Perhaps now she did not want you all to attack West-er-os. 

But she began to speak and her words came slowly at first, then more sure, falling as clear as a mountain stream. The earls asked her much and you wanted to hit them for not believing her, for challenging her so, though you knew it must be done.

The thin one, Edman, squashed his eyes together as he looked at her. ‘How do we know you are who you say you are?’

‘You don’t,’ she said. ‘I have no way of proving it apart from my words.’

‘Words,’ he said. His voice sounded like it been scratched many times. ‘They are fragile things to build boats on. To send hundreds of men over the sea for.’

‘You have seen her maps,’ said your brother, smiling. ‘And the boats she has drawn. No ordinary girl could do these things. And look how she has learnt our language. She speaks it better than some people who were born here.’ 

‘Yet she herself says these are only words,’ Olesen had food in his beard.

It was as if her hedgehog-spines had risen. ‘The word of a lady, ser, is respected in my lands. The word of a Stark, even moreso. My family is known for their honour.’ A patch of colour on her neck that you wanted to put your mouth on until it was cool again.

‘I thought your family were dead.’

A deep breath. ‘ _I_ am alive.’

Olesen was staring at her with his deep-set eyes, as if they had got lost in his skull. ‘Forgive me, Princess Sansa, but if these are your lands, why are you so eager for King Ragnar to raid them? It seems rather strange. Perhaps you are leading us all into a trap.’

‘I’m not -’ Her words stopped as fast as they had started, and her eyes flew to your brother. He gazed at her and slowly she looked back at the big bear-earl. ‘My family was destroyed. The people who rule now do not matter to me. I am happy if Ragnar hurts them.’ At last Sansa’s eyes came to yours, like a chaffinch alighting on you for a moment. 

They asked more, about armies, kings, castles, and frowned at the answers. ‘This seems a formidable land, King Ragnar,’ said Edman.

You spoke, then. ‘We will see for ourselves. If you give us your bloody men.’ 

Olesen frowned. ‘But no one has been clear on _where_ this is. Can _you_ navigate, Princess Sansa?’

‘I cannot.’

Ragnar sighed. He was getting his bored look, the one he always had when he was not getting his own way. ‘I have shown you where Athelstan and I believe it is. And I did not have a map of England, as my son reminded you in Thisted.’ Wide, child-eyes. ‘Yet I still found it.’

Bjørn folded his arms, looked impatient, like his father. He seemed more his old self - before the battle when he had hurt his leg - though his eyes were small and tired.

‘Yes,’ said Olesen. ‘We have heard of him. Your Christian priest.’

Your brother stared at them both. His lip curled. ‘Fine. We will work with what we have. There will be more to share between us and Earl Ingstad and Earl Borgerson and Earl Hjemlstad.’ The last words were rattled through quickly, his fingers flung at them. Lagertha’s neck became as long as a swan’s and the other earls nodded coolly. Ragnar turned away.

Another look between these two earls. 

‘It does not need to come to that,’ said Edman. He looked like he was chewing on a very old bit of horsemeat. Olesen nodded at him. ‘We will join you, King Ragnar. We will send men to collect warriors and supplies.’

Ragnar’s eyes flashed like the sun on the sea, and he threw away his mood in a moment, as if it had never been there. ‘I am glad to hear it. Then we must celebrate. Our new alliance.’ He put his arms out.

***

Another feast, with people spilling out from houses and onto the beach. There was heat and excitement in the air, mingling with firesmoke and charred meat-smells.

Sansa sat with Helga, watching the earls, and thought of Winterfell, before she and Arya and their father had travelled to King’s Landing. Everyone red-faced from ale, loud laughter and men with broad shoulders congratulating each other. For so many months, she knew that Ragnar’s plans had been progressing slowly towards attacking Westeros, but it had never quite seemed real until now. She felt nothing but dread. And it seemed ludicrous – after all, the earls were right. She didn’t know where Westeros was. They would be sailing into the dark.

And there was another reason that it felt like that night, though this time it was a tall, dark warrior and not a cold, golden-haired boy-prince who was in her thoughts. She remembered her excitement as Joffrey had sauntered across the feast-room with a shame that she wanted to scratch at until it bled. Rollo had never really talked about her being a princess, a lady – these things seemed so distant to her now. She was just - washed ashore, as he had said. No dowries, no promises of riches. 

Lagertha was sitting next to Athelstan at the next table. Athelstan had never treated Sansa as anything more than an equal, which was exactly as she had wanted it. Lagertha passed him another piece of roast boar and licked her fingers, before holding her cup up to him, a smile uncurling. He gave her one of his mild summer grins, and held his own out, the rims just touching. Perhaps - 

Movement on her lap. Ylva woke up suddenly – she had got used to people very quickly, and the noise did not bother her – sitting up, bumping her head on the table. A tiny, irritable whine. Sansa kissed the raised bone above her eye and fed her a few shreds of meat. He had given her this little wolf cub. He understood her in some ways. Many ways. She would have to make him understand _all_ of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting a wee bit long (for me), so I'll pop the second part up tomorrow!
> 
>  **Norse wildflower school** :
> 
> [ ** _Common butterwort_**!](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-purple/common-butterwort.htm)
> 
> [And the dress I imagine Sansa wearing, in its shade of butterwort:](http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2014/04/vikings_episode9_gallery_1.jpg)


	39. Sansa And The Earls Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Editor ZoeSong.

Ragnar puts his fingers into the little square holes of the screen at the back of the longhouse. He makes everyone fit into the squares. The earls. His brother. Floki and Helga. Lagertha and Athelstan – they are laughing together. He did not think Athelstan caused such mirth in people, but she smiles and smiles, and put a hand on his arm. A little knot-twist in his stomach, which he unpicks. It is nothing. He is jealous when Lagertha _frowns_ at a man, let alone smiles at one. 

He squashes two strips of the screen together, putting Bjørn in one, and looking for Sansa to put in another. She is not with him, or anywhere else he can see. But perhaps it is time to visit the seer again – to see if there is a future for the princess and his son. Thorunn is dead and his son is unhappy. It would make their alliance much stronger. It is time.

In the corner, Ragnvald and Hvitserk are using their training-spears with Torstein. He is letting them win. Aslaug watches them, a smile resting like half-open wings on her cheeks. 

Ragnar walks over. ‘Have you seen the princess?’

She puts a hand on his arm. ‘I think she may have found a new place to sleep.’ 

Perhaps he does not need to speak to the seer. Perhaps she has already begun to comfort Bjørn. ‘I am glad to hear it.’

‘You are?’ Her smile disappears, and comes again more slowly. ‘I am surprised.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I thought you had other plans for her.’

He swivels round to his wife. ‘Sometimes you begin to sound like the seer. Dressing your words in cloaks.’

Aslaug looks calm. ‘No cloaks. Sansa is sleeping with Rollo.’

Rollo. They sat together sometimes. He had trained her a little. He had spoken of her being his slave-girl, long ago. Rollo. Ragnar feels a little anger, towards both of them. Who is this woman, to hurt his friend so? To lie with all the men who are closest to him in his village? ‘Why am I always the last to know these things?’

‘You have a lot to take care of. You cannot see everything at once.’

‘ _You_ can.’

‘That is different.’ She puts a hand around the back of his head, traces some of the animals there. ‘At least tell me I am not starting to look like him.’

Ragnar is still wondering who to find first. Perhaps he will find them together and will deal with them both. ‘Who?’

‘The seer.’

‘You are sunlight and apples and rivers, my love.’ And he glitters his eyes at her, picks up her palm and runs his tongue along it.

***

‘So. You are having sex with the princess.’ Ragnar had taken the cup of ale you had been about to drink away from your mouth. There had been a lot of ale, and an eating contest with Earl Olesen in which you had proved yourself Logi to his Loki. Fresh air had been needed, and fast.

You sat back on the step, wiped your mouth, folded your arms. ‘Yes.’ Though perhaps you wouldn’t be anymore, after yesterday. You had to talk to her. When Siggy and you had argued, you would sometimes disappear for a day or two. This time, you did not want to disappear.

Ragnar walked in three different directions at once, before sitting down next to you. ‘She is not who I thought she was.’ He stood up again, walked again.

‘Why? That she would want to have sex with someone like me?’

‘No, brother.’ He turned around for a moment, glanced at you. ‘Your tricks with women are much talked of.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘But I am surprised at her all the same.’

You felt the clouds come, inside your lungs, in your belly, though there was not much room. ‘Because I have no future. Because I am nothing but your brother.’

Ragnar breathed out through his nose as if a wild horse being tamed. He sat down, his hands drumming on his knees, and smiled at them. A smile that was annoyed at itself for smiling. ‘I did not ask for this. I never did. I never wanted to be a king. Just to raid, to discover new lands. To farm.’

 _Farm_. You never believed him anymore when he said this. As if he would just go back to sowing barley-seed and fishing and feeding the goats. Well, maybe the last one.

He drummed his fingers some more. ‘Did you force her?’

‘What?’

 _Tap-tap-tap_. ‘Did you force her to have sex with you?’

You stood up, thought about hitting him with your axe handle. ‘What do you think?’

Ragnar bowed his head a little, as if to apologise, and ran a thumb across his eyebrow, moving as if he had ants all over his skin.

You tried to be the better man, to be like Athelstan, to use words. ‘Brother. You are a king, whether you want to be or not. But in this matter, you are not. You do not rule me. Or her.’

He stood up quickly, a dagger-breath making his eyes wide. A smile-glare, the words rushing out through his teeth. ‘Evidently not.’ 

***

It was finally getting dark. Sansa returned from the forest path where she had been walking with Ylva and stood near a bonfire on the beach, thinking of Thorunn’s pyre and how quickly she had turned to ashes, as if she had never been there at all. As if she had only ever been a dream of a person. 

Bark-shreds rose like black butterflies. She watched the dark shapes in the flames, castle turrets turning into a wall of shields into storm-tossed waves.

‘Do you want to become Glöð?’

Rollo was behind her. Ylva jumped out of Sansa’s arms onto the sand and scampered to his ankles, biting at them.

‘I don’t know who that is,’ she said, quietly.

He stepped closer so that he stood beside her. ‘Stop hiding from me.’

‘I’m not -’ she didn’t finish. They both knew that she had been.

‘Was that it? A few days and you are done with me?’

‘No.’

He sighed, heavily. ‘Say what you must say.’ 

Ylva was standing on her hind legs, clawing at his boot. She was no help. 

‘You do not want to marry me. You do not want my child.’ He folded his arms and she could hear a trace of dark humour in his voice. ‘I can only see that you want me for my warrior’s body.’

She couldn’t help but smile, then, her shoulders dropping. She half-turned to see the shadows and flame-sparks in his eyes. ‘Rollo.’

‘Well, what? What then? ’

She felt parts of herself fly up along with the wood-debris, twisting and weaving in front of her. ‘My whole reason for living was to make myself into a – _thing_ to be married. Men would look at me and see the lands that came with me. Winterfell. The North. Not just _me_.’ She turned to him. ‘I don’t want it to be for that. For _power_. That’s all I was, like one of your hnefatafl pieces.’

‘I don’t want to play with you.’ His voice dropped. ‘Not like that, anyway.’ A tiny, sly glance.

Now that she was talking about it, she couldn’t stop. ‘I was almost married to a monster -’ she looked at him. ‘Joffrey. The one who had me beaten. Who is dead now. And then I _was_ married to someone against my will, and all they wanted him to do was -’ she could hear Tywin coolly saying words like _whelp_ , and her horror at the thought of having to do that with Tyrion. She swallowed. ‘Bear children so that they could tie me to their House, use them for their own gain.’ He was gazing at the fire. ‘Don’t you understand? You – you _all_ – have made me more than this.’ She thought of Lagertha, capable without men, and capable with them. 

Rollo picked up Ylva and put his fingers in her mouth. Sansa glared at her. No help at all. ‘Then I am sorry,’ he said, to the wolf cub. ‘I am sorry for what I said. Just –‘ he turned to her properly, looked impatient. ‘Do not lie in your own bed. Live with me. In my house.’

***

Ragnar drums a dagger against his thigh, sitting on the porch, listening to a man sing a song that sounds like a cat giving birth. 

Bjørn is to marry Sansa. He will keep telling himself this. She is a girl who likes to discover, that is all. She likes new words, new customs, new men. She has tried out Athelstan, and now she is trying out his brother. Perhaps if Ragnar was not married, she would be in his bed also. She has been respectful of Bjørn and Thorunn. This – dalliance with Rollo. It will pass.

Lagertha stalks past him.

‘What are you doing?’ he says.

She stops, comes back to him. ‘What do you mean?’

He lays his dagger flat on his knee. ‘You and Athelstan.’

She raises her eyebrows and repeats his words slowly, as if they are a great joke. ‘Me and Athelstan.’

Ragnar rolls his eyes at her, leans forward, elbows on his thighs. ‘Do not pretend. I was married to you for fourteen years. I know how you are when you like a man. I know how you look.’

‘How do I look?’

‘Like you want to eat him.’

‘The only man I ever liked in all that time, Ragnar Lothbrook, was _you_.’ She leans forward, talks to him as if he is five years old. ‘And look where that got me.’

It is like little stabs in his heart, stabs with a child’s first knife. He had not liked to think of her married to the mad earl, but he had hardly known about that until after she had plunged a fork into his eye. This was different. This was his friend. _His_ friend. ‘I do not want you to lie with him.’

Lagertha laughs quietly and turns away. ‘I do not care what you want.’

He catches her hand, pulls her back round. ‘You can have anyone you like. Not him.’

‘The last time you could tell me what to do was when we were married.’ She draws her eyebrows in. ‘Oh no, wait – you could not, then, either.’

***

You had left her on the beach, staring into the fire, her hair the same colour as the flames. There had been smiles, dark, watchful ones. She had not said that she did not want to marry you. But she had not said that she did. It was better to just shut up about that. For now.

By Freyr, what was taking her so long? Maybe she had changed her mind. Was going back to the priest. You tipped your cup up. Nothing left. Fine. You would get more ale from the longhouse -

You opened the door and the little wolf trotted in past your feet. Sansa was there, looking like she had just flown here, or was about to fly away. A bundle in her hands.

‘Hello,’ you said.

‘Hello,’ she said back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  ** _Logi_** is the Norse god of fire. Loki was pitted against Logi in an eating contest. The contestants appeared to be equal in speed at eating meat from the bone, but Logi also consumed the bones and even the wooden trencher in which the meat was placed showing off his might. Útgarða-Loki afterwards explained that Logi was really wildfire itself. Rollo compares himself to Logi, of course! What a hero.
> 
>  ** _Glöð_** (‘glowing embers’) is a fire giantess and the wife of the fire god, Logi.


	40. Sansa And The Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Editor ZoeSong.
> 
> Lots of Sansa POV in the second half of this one, just with little time-jumps.

_Blackness. Blackness and water in the veins instead of blood. Waves that bruise. She opens her mouth to scream and water pours into her, makes her a boulder and she sinks, sinks down, down into –_

Sansa awoke, covered in sweat but not the sea. Daylight. A roof made of wood, not of water. Air, sweetly stale. 

Another drowning-dream. They had been returning, nightmares that she had not had for months. She listened to her heart slowly smooth itself out, and imagined the salt rising from her skin.

Ylva pounced onto the bed, gripping her claws into the covers where Rollo had been. A warm, hollowed-out space. Sansa could still smell him. 

***

It was four villages crammed into one. Sometimes there were fights, too much ale drunk, women fought over, but mostly you kept them in order, and the earls watched over their own men. Ragnar kept freeing thralls for their good work - fluttering his fingers at them and nodding as if he were their slave - which made everything more confusing.

Floki looked madder than ever this early morning, dashing between the boat-sites, scolding and throwing his hands up as if Ragnarok was upon you all.

‘They will all sink, Rollo.’ His face was like a badger’s, black sweeps against the white. He looked tired.

You folded your arms. ‘The first one didn’t.’

‘I cannot watch all these men on my own. How can I know that they are making them correctly?’

‘You have to trust your workers, Floki. And you are not the only boat-builder among them.’

He made a hissing, pushing noise between his teeth. ‘All they do is make toy boats for little children. I am the only _great_ boat-builder.’

You sighed. ‘If you say so.’

***

‘Princess.’

Ragnar’s face was full of small nicks and scars on his face that hadn’t been there before England. As if he was a rock being slowly crafted, year by year, the sculptor adding tiny marks. He had come to her with a pile of Athelstan’s bark-pieces in his hand. Now he was sitting down cross-legged in front of her, and she stared at his cheeks and at the deep-green and blue tattoos twisting around his skull. 

He flashed a smile at Sansa. ‘You have done well to learn our tongue,’ he said. ‘I want to learn yours. So that I may speak with your kings when we arrive at your land.’ He sniffed and gave an eagle-gliding glare to the little, quivering mass of curiosity next to his knee.

‘Lie down,’ Sansa said to Ylva.

She had been training her wolf cub, teaching the words – in the roughly-spun sounds of the Northman language – for _walk, sit, stop_ , and most recently _get_ , though this seemed hardly a necessary instruction. Ylva would attempt to attack everything in sight, and chewed on plants, twigs, shoes, hands. Sansa’s fingers bore the rawness of her curiosity.

Ylva did as she was told now, however, curling up against Sansa’s side with a little squeaking sound.

Sansa tried to imagine all the men and women outside swarming onto a coast somewhere. ‘King Ragnar -’ she looked at him steadily, wondering how to voice her concerns without insulting him. His manner had been odd to her in the last days, but he had not asked her about Rollo. She didn’t dare bring it up, though Rollo had said, offhandedly, that his brother knew about them now. She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve tried to tell you that this land – West-er-os is very large. There are many men. Large armies. Very large armies. Already many are fighting to be the one ruler. I know you have been trying to make the earls feel - more assured, but -’

Ragnar screwed his nose up as if an old sheep had wandered in. ‘It is the same in England. There is Wessex and Mercia and North-umb-ria and they all fight.’ His voice became air. ‘It is has not proved difficult there.’

‘You are right.’ She spoke carefully. ‘But – how will you find it? I know you were telling the earls that you could, but – how will you know to get there? I can't tell you. I don't know the sea.'

He looked at his fingernails. ' _I_ know the sea.' 

‘But -’ 

'It is West. It can only be west, around England, and further.’ He pushed his fingers through the air, made a crescent-shape. 'And I have sailed West before, and no one had ever done that until I did.' 

Ragnar’s head lolled, as if attached only by a string, and Sansa had a sudden image of him being controlled from above by a puppeteer, except she knew that no one could be in charge of him. Not even the gods. His gods. 

His sigh made his eyes wide, as it always did. 'Odin gave his eye to learn all the knowledge these realms hold.’ He leant forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘I would give more. I want to know what cities and gods are there.'

'I can tell you that.' She knew it was futile.

'I want to see them for myself.' She could almost see Kings Landing glittering in his eye.

 _You will all be killed. I will be killed_. Then she thought again of the Greyjoys, the Ironborn who had held their own corner of Westeros with little resources. ‘I just want you to know that - if we get there - it will be not be easy. That it will be very dangerous. Much harder than England.’

‘All the more reason for me to learn your language.’ He gave her that look that seemed to be of amusement and danger and seduction all at once. ‘So that I may speak to your kings and not just put an axe between their eyes.’ And he sat up straight, the way a child might be told to at the dinner table, and put his finger on a word. The word for hello in the Common Tongue. ‘Teach.’

The candle flickered low, and Sansa began to teach him her words, one by one, as Athelstan had done for her at the other end of the winter.

***

‘There are two great monsters in the sea.’

Ragnar is lying on his back across his sons’ beds, with Sigurd resting like a big turnip on his stomach. Hvitserk sits on one side of him and Ragnvald on the other. The sounds of axe on wood outside, as always.

‘There is the great whale, Lyngbakr -’ he curves his hand and moves it in front of Hvitserk, his knuckles arching as if breaking the waves.

The princess is so careful. She does not look to this journey with eagerness. Perhaps this is how women are, in her lands. Not like Lagertha. Folding her legs under her, folding her hands, always folding something. There is strength there – it is easy enough to see – but it is not quite warrior-strength. 

‘And there is Hafgufa, with all his many curling legs.’ And he wriggles the fingers of his other hand up Ragnvald’s back, making him squirm and screw his face up like a wet cloth.

‘Lyngbakr is very ugly and has a back full of lumps and bumps and scales, and he is as big as Kattegat.’ Sigurd wriggles on top of him and Ragnar squeezes his soft, fat sides. ‘Almost as big as _you_.’

He sees the map that Sansa drew with Athelstan, the map of this land that seems almost like a realm of its own. Perhaps there is a tenth realm, though he should never let Floki hear him say that. It is the shape of an old hunchbacked woman with tall white hair. They just have to cross the sea to get there.

‘Hafgufa is as long as fifty boats, and he is very greedy. He can open up his mouth and swallow everything in front of him – whales, boats, men, anything he can find.’ He opens his eyes wide, and his mouth too, in a big yawn. ‘He can eat almost as much as your uncle.’

His sons giggle.

‘One day, the great sailor Orvar and his men are exploring the cold Northern sea, and they see two rocks sticking out of the water. And later they see an island covered in heather. Even though they are hungry and tired and could stop and rest there, Orvar sails on, and instead sends some men back to look. But when they go back, the rocks are no longer there. And nor is the island.’ 

Perhaps the journey will be long. Much longer than England. Perhaps they will get stuck in ice-floes, and face Thor’s greatest storms. Perhaps they will not arrive in West-er-os with as many boats as they set off with. Perhaps they will not arrive at all.

‘Orvar realises that these rocks must have been the nose of Hafgufa.’ He touches Ragnvald’s nose. ‘And this island must have been the back of Lyngbakr.’ He tickles Hvitserk’s spine until his son falls on top of him. ‘His enemy, Ogmundar, must have sent these sea-monsters to kill them all, but because Orvr used his mind, he saved all of his men.’

‘Father,’ says Ragnvald, his eyes like licked-clean plates. ‘Will Hafgufa eat you?’

Ragnar looks up to roof and sees his people, streaked in mud and sheep’s blood, rising up from the sea, raging towards soldiers in gold cloaks.

He grins. ‘No, little pig. I am too bony for him.’ And he gathers his three sons into his arms, and tries to eat them all.

***

‘Tell me about your family.’

They were lying facing each other. Sansa’s legs were drawn up, one foot between Rollo’s knees, and he rested his head on his elbow. Ylva was a coarse, warm pillow in the well of her back.

She gazed past him. ‘They are all gone.’

Nights were new, now that Sansa was living in his house. Nights were the puttering light from the lamps and both of them on their knees on furs. It was the way their skin connected but it was also how they talked, which they did, more and more, sometimes until the dawn sun had returned. Sunna, starting her chariot up again. 

With Athelstan everything had been a little careful, polite even. Rollo would stroll around his house naked, pull her into him at every available opportunity, though once or twice he had been so exhausted from the boat-work that he was almost asleep before he lay down.

Now he put his finger on her nose and then her cheek until she looked at him. ‘Tell me about them anyway.’

Most of the time, Sansa kept her memories clasped tight, as if they were in a box with a heavy stone laid on top. It was always so difficult to think of them without thinking of the deaths they met, and dark fantasies about their last, utterly painful moments. Whether they thought of her as they died, or whether fear and agony blinded them. But with Rollo’s warm eyes gazing back at her, she felt stronger. She opened the box.

She told him of the Tullys in the Riverlands, and the Starks in Winterfell, of her father’s bloodline guarding the North for thousands of years. Of how King Robert had loved her aunt, Lyanna. Of her brothers, and of Arya.

‘She sounds like a little shieldmaiden.’

‘She would have been. Far better than I.’ A little scratchy weight on her as Ylva climbed over her and onto Rollo.

‘You are doing well.’ He shifted, picked Ylva up by the scruff of the neck and put her on the floor. A sinewy little yowl before she wandered into the corner and sat down. ‘Who rules Win-terfell now?’

So many months had passed. Who on earth knew what might have happened. ‘I think it is Lord Bolton. His sign is a –‘ she did not know the word. She mimed cutting a knife into Rollo’s chest, peeling the skin back. ‘A man with his skin taken off.’

Rollo’s eyebrows tugged down towards each other. ‘Your mother’s sign is a fish, your own a wolf, and his is a skinned man?’

She nodded. She could remember him well enough, standing at the shoulder of her father, watchful, eyes that seemed unwashed and scrubbed clean at the same time. 

‘I look forward to meeting him.’ A confident half-smile.

No one understood how dangerous it was. ‘Why must you go? Why does Ragnar want to go? The whole land is at war.’

He put a finger on her cheekbone again, and traced a line to her ear and down her neck. She imagined her skin being cut off methodically, Lord Bolton standing above her, and a shiver swept through her.

‘It is who we are,’ he said, gently, but as if reading from a history chronicle. ‘It is in our blood to seek new lands, to discover. To always move forward.’

But she was _here_ , in this place where the seasons turned the colours as surely as blood flowed in veins, where people told stories and lived off the land. There were battles, just the same, and fears and death, but fairness, too. ‘I don’t want to go.’

He moved an arm underneath her ear. ‘You must come. You are our map. You speak the language.’

‘Athelstan knows some. Ragnar is learning a little.’

‘Not enough. And you are an important person there.’

Important. Important only in that she was still alive. ‘More people want me dead than want me alive.’

Rollo’s look became both warm and fierce, then. ‘You think I would let anyone kill you? Do you think Ragnar would? Or Bjørn?’

‘I know you are fearless, Rollo, but -’

He put a hand around the back of Sansa’s head. ‘We all have fear.’ His eyes became summer mud-puddles, the sort birds bathe in. ‘Only the gods know your fate. It is already written. Embrace your fear. Welcome it.’

***

‘What is it, Sansa?’ Helga came to stand beside her amongst the trees in the sheltered bay, Angrboda in her arms. 

Sansa had gone to Helga’s house try and clear her thoughts. She knew she had to travel with them all. ‘I’m just - frightened.’

‘I know you are.’ Her voice was as soft and cool as white linen. ‘But you are brave, too.’

‘Will you be coming, Helga?’

‘I do not know yet. Floki does not want us to.’ She shifted Angrboda onto her hip and talked to her, rubbing her own nose with her daughter’s. ‘But women often go – not just the shieldmaidens. There are women needed to help with healing and sewing and cooking.’

‘Would you not be scared?’

‘A little. But -’ her eyes took on a gloss of eagerness as she looked back at Sansa. ‘It is exciting to see new places.’

It was truly in their blood. These people had looked after her, and this was what they wanted – perhaps she owed them this. But, even aside from her fears of who would meet them in Westeros, there was something else binding her to her fear. The great, dark enemy that lay between Kattegat and the rest of the realms.

She turned to Helga, whose eyes were ringed dark as a nuthatch’s and full of concern. ‘It’s just – this.’ She turned back to their view as they stood on the crushed pine needle floor. ‘The sea.’

Angrboda made a little gosling-noise and Helga lowered her to the floor. 

‘It’s – I don’t want to go back on it. It almost killed me.’

Angrboda ran with heavy little steps behind them and they both turned to see Floki leaning against a tree trunk, arms folded, his eyebrows two mountain-swipes. 

***

‘Have you really not been out on the sea since you came here, Blóðughadda?’ Floki had heard everything between them both, and had insisted on taking her out into the bay immediately. There was nothing she could do to persuade him otherwise.

‘No.’ She held onto the sides of the little boat as it juddered gently on the waves. This _was_ different. The bay was shallow, the weather calm, and the boat very small.

It was as if Floki’s face had been ineptly stitched, the way his mouth and eyes were darned. He kept watching her as he rowed, long arms and oars as one. ‘What are you afraid of?’

Didn’t he remember how she came to be here? ‘Drowning.’

‘Perhaps you should pray to your gods.’ His face was a candle-wax colour, and old black markings had faded under his eyes. He reminded her of the mummer’s who had come to Winterfell once. ‘Do you have sea-gods?’ A darkly lilting tone.

She thought of the Ironborn’s Drowned God, forever in battle with their Storm God. Her father had always said that neither of them truly existed. ‘No.’

‘What is the point of not having a sea-god to take care of you? And who makes the storms? What do you think this is? Just empty water?’

He was so combative. ‘Floki, I _like_ your gods.’

He made a sound like a spitting fire. ‘They are not there to be liked. They are there to be listened to. Followed.’ His eyes became sneering. ‘You and your gods.’ 

‘You have _more_ gods.’

‘And they are better than yours. They walk among us, they are not imaginary things to pray to.’ His words curled like petals at night. ‘Trees and flowers.’ He shook his head, pulled a little harder on the oars.

They were quite far out now, heading towards the middle of the bay. From here, his house looked like something a doll would live in. She could imagine a little doll-version of Floki, walking jerkily amongst the trees, thin wrists spinning. ‘Have you ever seen a god?’

He shrugged, a smile like a dagger on his lips. ‘Maybe. They visit us from time to time.’ He rested his oars and squinted past her. ‘There is one over there.’

A _god_? She looked round. ‘Where?’

‘There.’ He pointed, sounding casual. ‘Over at the mountain. It is better if you stand up. I cannot tell who it is from here. Perhaps they are trying to send you a message.’

Sansa eyed him doubtfully before carefully getting to her feet, wobbling in the sway of the boat. Was it really that simple? He did seem to be so close to them – perhaps it was easier for him to see them than others in Kattegat. She looked over towards the broad slope of the east-facing mountain, at its shadows and angles. ‘I still can’t see any-’ 

A hand on her calf, another at her hip and the sea tilted towards her and wrapped itself around her. 

Gods. She was in the water.

Cold water and salt in her mouth and blackness and it was just like before and her skirts were heavy and pulling downwards and she kicked, kicked at the water as if it were stone, upwards and upwards and her mouth met the air. A gasp as loud as a scream. Her own. Hands, on hers, pulling her upwards and onto the boat.

Sansa lay panting at the bottom of the rowboat. A fish, sputtering. 

Floki blocked out the light. A blackly impish smile. ‘See? You did not drown. The daughters of Aegir held you aloft on the waves. Perhaps you are one of them after all.’

She could hit him. Carefully, she sat up and stared at him furiously. Her dress was glued to her, heavy as mud. ‘But – if there is a storm -’ 

He scrunched his face up at the sky. ‘If Thor makes a storm then we will all drown.’ His voice became light as air, light as water. ‘We will all go to Valhalla together.’

She thought about hitting him all the way back up to their house, inside their house, listening to Helga scold him as she put furs round her shoulders and lit a fire, and listening to her teeth chatter like woodpeckers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> I wanted to find a story about the sea that had not been used in Vikings and it was surprisingly hard! The legend of the sea-monsters **_Hafgufa_** (‘sea-mist’; squid-like) and **_Lyngbakr_** (‘heather-back’; whale-like) are from a 13th-century Icelandic saga about the hero Ǫrvar-Oddr (‘Arrow-head’). Hafgufa is a precursor to the Kraken.
> 
> The **_Daughters of Aegir_** or the **_undines_** , Aegir and Rán's nine daughters, born of the waves, and representing the waves themselves.
> 
>  ** _Blóðughadda_** is one of Aegir and Rán's daughters. She has blood-red hair – the color of the waves after a naval battle.


	41. Sansa And The Dagger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to awesome Editor ZoeSong.

Men and women were fighting everywhere. There was the constant, glinting _clack_ of swordplay and shield meeting shield. Shoulders barged into each other, faces were grimy and grimacing, and Sansa loved seeing Rollo stride amongst the training-grounds, hardly fighting but instead watching, advising, mentoring. He seemed at home.

‘Sansa.’

She looked back at Bjørn. ‘Sorry.’

Bjørn was letting her train with him, though his arms were loose and he kept smiling. Despite his leg, he was still ten times the fighter she was. Twenty times. ‘Do women fight like this in your lands?’ he asked.

She grinned and pushed away some loose hair. ‘Not many.’ She thought of Brienne of Tarth, the tall woman who appeared at Kings Landing with Jaime Lannister, and the like of which she had never seen, apart from Dacey Mormont once or twice at Winterfell. 

‘You will surprise them, then.’ He glanced over at Rollo, and his voice became playful. ‘Perhaps in more ways than one.’

She scrunched her face up at him and lunged forward. Ylva, who had been scampering around at their feet, lunged at him too, her tail sticking out straight as a dagger behind her.

He took a step to the side and her sword whistled past him. ‘Why did you not tell me before? About my uncle?’ He had a way of sounding very wise, far older than his years, and yet still child-like.

She stood still for a moment. ‘I didn’t really know myself. And – with Thorunn -’

Bjørn gazed at her, his eyes beginning to deepen and become forlorn, before he made great efforts to bring himself back into the light. ‘I am glad to see that you are happy.’ His hair had turned to summer straw in the sun. ‘I think you make him happy.’ He smiled, raised his arm and brought his sword into her. She blocked it with her shield, but the force of it pushed her backwards and she fell, a little clanging jolt in the base of her spine. 

He didn’t laugh, merely held his hand out to her.

Sansa could feel the strength in him as he pulled her back up, like the tow of the sea. She looked at him, frustrated. ‘I’m just not good enough.’

‘You have been training just for a few months. I have been learning since I was old enough to walk. You will get better. And you have another weapon, once she is bigger.’ A nod to Ylva, who had become distracted by a moth and was snapping at the air. He sighed. ‘I, on the other hand.’ He tapped his leg with the flat of his sword.

‘It will heal.’ She tried to catch his eye and spoke more softly. ‘Everything does, in time.’

He didn’t look up.

‘Would you like some water?’ She wiped the sweat from her forehead. ‘I’m exhausted.’ Unlike Bjørn, or Rollo, or most of the Northmen and women here who seemed to revel in it, the sun was another attacker now to her, stealthy and slow.

He nodded.

‘Stay,’ she said to Ylva, dropping her sword and shield from her arm. Bjørn bent down to her wolf, gently baring his teeth as she sat obediently on her haunches, before tucking a hand under her chin and stroking her.

Eyes followed Sansa curiously as she made her way through the village. She was always aware of them – Kattegat had accepted her long ago, but these were new people, who thought her an outsider. 

The small drinking trough was empty. She would have to ask someone to fetch more streamwater. Perhaps ale would do instead.

‘We are doing all this for you, then.’

Sansa turned to see a tall man with dirty blonde hair and a beard clipped with a silver ring standing with his arms folded. ‘What?’

He wandered closer, his eyes sparkling and dark all at once. A scar running from his temple and down his cheek, as if someone had once tried to cut his ear off. ‘All this.’ He nodded about them both. ‘The boats. The warriors. It is all for you.’

‘Not for me. For King Ragnar.’

He leaned down to her a little. A dark, sparkling voice, too. ‘But we are taking you home.’

 _Home_. A word that seemed to have no substance, like a cloud or mist. She didn’t know what to say. There was something in his manner that made her feel uneasy. ‘No.’

He drew his finger and thumb down his nose. ‘I can understand it. Why King Ragnar would do it. A woman of your –‘ his eyes slid over her hair. ‘Status. A beautiful woman.’

Sansa didn’t feel very flattered. ‘Thank you,’ she said, keeping her voice cool, and began to move past him. ‘Excuse me -’

He grabbed her hand.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Why don’t you come and talk to me?’ He pulled at her a little, and nodded at the doorway to a house.

‘ _No_.’

He tugged again, and Sansa began to feel fearful. She resisted, pulling backwards. ‘Take your hand off me.’ 

He glanced around, shushing her a little, before wrapping a hand around her waist. 

Sansa dug her elbow into his ribs. ‘Get _off_ me.’

Hot breath on her ear. ‘Come on. I have heard that you like to lie with a man -’ 

His arm was suddenly not there any longer. Rollo had yanked it backwards.

***

A man, with his hands on her. 

You were over there faster than Gulltop. ‘What are you doing? You have no right to touch her!’

He looked familiar, this one. Earl Borgerson’s man. Colby, or Colden. You had met him when you had gone out before the winter had set in. Always getting drunk, even more than you. Perhaps a little drunk now. He wrenched his arm from your grasp. ‘Perhaps she wanted me to touch her,’ he said, his eyes becoming narrow ships.

You looked at your _raf refr_. Fear in her face. No guilt. ‘Did you want him to touch you?’

Her eyes cleared, and she straightened. ‘No. I did not.’

You gripped him by the tunic and rammed your forehead into his. Bone meeting bone, and a pain that spread to your ears in a heartbeat. His hand came up and you elbowed it away, shoved him back into the wall so that his shoulder blades cracked a little, and pulled him to you again. You got behind him, hooked an arm under his chin and dragged him as if he were just a small sack of grain to the pig yard. A few people had stopped to watch. 

Colby-or-Colden spat blood into your eye. You brought your knee up, kicked his legs away, stamped hard into his groin. His hands folded into his lap. You heaved him up and rolled him over the fence into the pigshit. A little laughter around you.

‘Touch her again,’ you said. ‘And I’ll cut your cock off.’

***

Ragnar is learning again with the princess in the little shed, trying to fit all the sounds she teaches him onto his tongue, while her wolf cub dozes in a patch of sunlight in the corner. This language is not like English, which is a blunt sword. It is like a curling Eastern dagger, and one that doesn’t stop moving. 

‘Again,’ she says, and he tries not to roll his eyes. Mutters it. ‘The words do not fit together in the right way,’ he says, sending two little stubs of charcoal along the table.

He is impatient. Floki says that the boats need a little longer. It is not quite midsummer, but who knows how long it will take on the sea. They must not let the summer travel too far.

Sansa catches the stubs as they reach the end. ‘Perhaps it is yours that do not fit together in the right way.’ She looks elvish, like a Ljósálfr, and he stares at her until she drops her eyes, and begins to say a new sentence.

‘Why did you stop lying with Athelstan?’ 

Her words stop. ‘What?’

She has forgotten his name, even. ‘ _Athelstan_. One moment you two are like two little green peas in their seed-pod and the next – you are in my brother’s bed.’

She looks at her palms as if they are pages of a book. ‘It just – happened that way. I care about Athelstan, but – as a friend. Like you do.’

He glares at her. ‘No. Not like I do. I would not be so heartless.’ 

Her eyes go cloudy, like walking in the shallow tide. She is guilty. ‘My heart -’ she says, before gulping a little breath. ‘I didn’t know it for a while, but my heart was with another.’

‘Your heart or somewhere -’ He tilts his face and lets his eyes drift towards her lap, his voice fluttering around like a moth. ‘A little further down?’

She sits up. Sometimes her neck makes Ragnar think of a deer, and sometimes a swan. ‘Both.’ Spoken boldly, eyes like a winter sea.

‘He has seduced you well.’ Wanting a princess for himself. He had said it all along. Of course he would do this. Ragnar had just never thought that she would trip over her own skirts for it.

Her mouth becomes a straight line, like the horizon. ‘You should believe in him more. He is your brother.’

There is a woodlouse on the floor. He puts his hand down, lets it blunder onto it. If she wasn’t with Rollo, she would at least be with Athelstan. And that would mean that Lagertha would not be raising her eyebrow at his friend everytime Ragnar saw them. All these great jokes. So much laughing.

The princess watches him. ‘He has done everything you asked since you have been away. He has done more than that. There have been fights and he has broken them up. Complaints from the slaves that they are being asked to work too much on the boat. No one has died. He has been - _you_.’

‘I recall a fight just the other day.’ He knows he sounds like one of his little sons and he does not care.

‘Rollo was defending me. Defending my honour. If someone made advances to Aslaug, wouldn’t you do the same?’

The woodlouse lumbers over his knuckles. ‘What about Bjørn?’

Her face closes its doors. ‘What about Bjørn?’

‘Do you not care for him?’

‘Yes. Very much. But not in the way that you want.’

‘I have done a lot for you, princess. I could have had you killed. Or made a slave.’

The colour is rising in her now. Blood on a pale meadow. ‘And I have done a lot for you.’ Sansa flings her eyes around, at the maps, the words drawn on bark. 

A little growl in the corner that sounds like three mosquitos flying into each other. Her wolf cub has woken up and is staring at him.

Wolf and girl both with eyes that say _attack_. ‘Do you want to learn my language or not?’ she says.

Ragnar shrugs and raises the woodlouse to his nose as she tells him more words that all sound the same.

***

Blows to her arm. Her shoulder. Her bones rattling. 

Sansa was training with Lagertha’s shieldmaidens for the third afternoon in a row, and Lagertha was not as forgiving as Bjørn about her relative newness. She would pair Sansa with the toughest women, it seemed – fighters with fierce eyes and half-shaved heads, who seemed to want to run screaming into Valhalla – and now faced Sansa herself. 

‘Try to bring your sword _over_ my shield,’ she said. 

Sansa’s arm already felt like pummelled meat, but she did as she was commanded. It was impossible to say no to her. Her blood was as strong as iron, and Sansa had wondered at her, at how she could be so many things and still be a woman. Lagertha blocked her, again and again, until finally Sansa managed to trick her into turning the wrong way and placed her sword against Lagertha’s arm.

Lagertha stood still, watching her carefully, before smiling. ‘Good.’

Sansa’s breath felt like paper thrown into the air. She let it settle. Lagertha looked past her and seemed about to call out to another girl to come and fight.

‘Earl Ingstad -’ Lagertha looked at her. ‘How do you get men to respect you?’

Lagertha received the question as if she had been expecting it. She took a slow, considered breath in. ‘Be strong. Always look at them. Hold your head high. Do not think that you have any less right to anything that a man can have.’

Sansa was not just thinking of Ragnar, although his words to her earlier had infuriated her. ‘Have you ever been attacked by a man?’ She saw the dark coal-glitter eyes of the man by the drinking trough. In all this time in Kattegat she had never truly felt in danger from a man until now, and his advances had given her new dreams to replace the nightmares of the black, heavy sea. Goldcloaks and Kingsguard and Joffrey and nameless, faceless men, who all wanted one thing. ‘I mean – not in battle.’

Lagertha understood. Perhaps all women did. ‘Of course.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I fought back.’ Each word was simple and as hard as a pebble.

‘Will you teach me how?’

Lagertha eyed her. ‘It is useful to have a dagger on you. Do you have one?’

Sansa shook her head. ‘Only my sword.’

‘You will not always have your sword in your hand.’ She leant down and withdrew her own dagger from her calf-strap. ‘Take mine.’

It had an ornate carved bone handle, gleaming grey-white curving underneath her palm. ‘I cannot.’

‘You can and you will. Consider it a gift.’

Another command that was impossible to refuse. ‘Thank you.’

***

You watched the women train, screams like gulls over a shoal of fish. Once, you would have been happy watching them all and imagining which one or two - or three, if you were really drunk - you’d have in your bed. Now, you just watched one. The one whose sword-arm jerked a little in her sleep. Twice she had hit you and not even woken. The one whose hair was turning to gold and beaten copper in the sun.

And you watched Lagertha training your _raf refr_ , getting her to hold a dagger up to another girl’s throat. A slicing action. Slow arcs through the air towards her ribs. It made your crotch growl.

She walked over, the woman that you loved once, a long time ago. Stories and poems and sagas ago. Lagertha never seemed to look tired, no matter how much she had been in battle. She stood next to you, folded her arms as you were already doing, and watched her women fight. 

‘So,’ you said. ‘You are with Athelstan now.’

She did not turn. ‘Says who?’

‘Torstein said he came upon you both in the bathhouse.’ You dropped your voice. ‘And you were not bathing.’

A moment filled with the shouts of the girls. Sansa had a brown-haired shieldmaiden’s chin under her elbow. You tried not to cross your legs.

‘We have spent a night or two together,’ Lagertha said, in a voice light as clover-grass, before she caught your smile. A shoulder towards you. A challenge as she narrowed her eyes. ‘What?’

You raised your eyebrows. ‘Nothing.’ She kept staring at you and it was like being pinned down with clay that had dried in the sun. ‘You and the priest,’ you said, shaking your head. ‘Did you decide you wanted a slave after all?’

Her smile was not quite a smile. ‘It is good to be with a man who has a large mind. And knows how to use it.’

‘Are you saying I am not clever?’

She used her words like a slow dance around you, a slow dance that had a foot-stamp coming somewhere. ‘I am just saying that most men think only with their cocks and not their heads.’ The wind made parts of her hair do its own sword-move through the air. ‘I do not regret you, Rollo. I do not regret much of anything.’

‘Even that other earl you married?’

Lagertha turned back towards the shieldmaidens. ‘Perhaps I regret not killing him a little sooner. Some men are better with a dagger between their eyes.’ A smile, finally, a real one, and she walked back towards them, your own shieldmaiden amongst them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  ** _Ljósálfar_** are the light elves; _Ljósálfr_ is the singular. They are fairer than the sun and live in the mountains. 
> 
> **Name nugget** :  
> Colby means ‘town of darkness,’ and Colden means ‘coal town.’


	42. Sansa And The Sun And The Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Editor ZoeSong.

Athelstan and Sansa sat next to each other, their heads close. It was the most intimate they had been since Sansa had told him about Rollo. His manner had always been nothing but polite and smiling, but she had known that his gaze was carefully-polished. She had hurt him, no matter what he had said. Now, she tried not to look at his pebble-smooth wrist as he turned over a bark-piece, frowning.

Ragnar had told Sansa that she must teach Athelstan more of the Common Tongue, saying that two people in hundreds were not enough. In the little shed, with the woody heat of summer pressing on her neck, she had handed Athelstan strings of words that he collected quickly, trying them out as if they held great weight, like jewels he had not wanted to steal. He was infinitely more humble and patient than his friend ever was – Ragnar always acted as if she had demanded he chop cabbages or wash her smallclothes when she asked him to say something again.

After Athelstan repeated back a sentence to her, he smiled. ‘You have come a long way. Since you arrived here.’ The sides of his head had been shaved and his beard was a little longer. With his neck bearing the slash-mark of the swords that had struck him, he looked more like the other Northmen than he had before.

Her own smile was slow, careful. ‘I couldn’t have done that without you. Sit down, Ylva.’ 

The wolf cub was sniffing the ground around Athelstan, rubbing her haunch against his knee quite shamelessly. He laughed a little through his nose at Ylva, putting his hand on the bristles of her back. 

It felt delicately comfortable, being here together. Sansa gazed at him. Though it was hard not to look at him and remember their shadowed, inquisitive nights together, she wanted so desperately for them to be friends again. ‘Have you been well, Athelstan?’ 

A tiny rash of colour rose in his cheek. ‘Quite well, yes. Thank you.’ His eyes slid to the wall, and the corner of his mouth flicked upwards, just a little.

She knew what it meant. Rollo had told her and she had felt an odd mix of pride and, very faintly, envy at him lying with another. ‘You are – are you with Lagertha?’ 

He looked at his lap, his hands, before lifting his eyes to Sansa. Clear, blue-green, guileless. ‘She is certainly – enjoying me.’ And there – the confidence she had liked so much, mixed in with the serenity.

‘You are very enjoyable.’ She said it before even thinking about it, and glanced at him, biting her lip.

Dust tumbled in the air. Ylva ran at Athelstan and leaped into his lap. He and Sansa both grinned at each other.

She felt as if an ice-floe was breaking up, leaving only warm, summer seas in its place. The tension had been broken, at last, after so many days and weeks. ‘And how are you?’ he said, warmly. An open, encouraging look.

‘Well.’ She nodded. ‘I am well.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’

His winter eyes made her think of another winter. One which would not be hushed and snowflaked, like him. 

He caught her look. ‘What is it?’

Her sigh came out with little dew-drops. ‘It’s madness, Athelstan. It won’t work.’ She gestured to the bark-pieces. ‘This. Everything.’

Athelstan watched her, and she saw a little flint-spark that reminded her of Ragnar, and knew there was no hope. ‘We won’t know unless we try.’

***

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Ragnar cannot stand it any longer. He has heard rumours of it, of Lagertha and Athelstan. In the bathhouse. In the barn. In the forest. He watches him come out of the little word-shed, waits until he comes over and shoves him in the shoulder, harder than usual.

Athelstan cups his hand on his own shoulder. He should be thankful it wasn’t his injured one. ‘Doing what?’

Ragnar glares at him. ‘Do not look at me with those innocent priest-eyes. You are not him anymore.’

Athelstan knows exactly what he means. ‘I’m sorry, Ragnar. It just – happened.’

It is what the princess had said about Rollo. ‘These things just keep _happening_.’ If he could take his eyes out of his head and fling them at him, he would. 'There must be something in the air. Perhaps it is the gods’ work.’ He lets breath fall out of him like an avalanche with rocks in it. ‘She is my wife.’

Athelstan takes in a breath small enough to fit through the eye of a needle. ‘Your _ex_ -wife.’ The slightest pressure on that word, like a tiny push into a big pit of fire. He is watching you, all guilt and not-guilt and careful and not-careful. 

It is Ragnar’s fault. He has made Athelstan Viking and now he sleeps with all his women. 

‘I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything,’ Athelstan says.

‘What do you mean, doesn’t mean anything? That makes it worse.’ Ragnar folds his arms, sighs at the wall. ‘You rejected her before. Or do you not remember?’ The first or second night, when he was a slave. Lagertha, slicked with sweat, whispering in his ear. _Let’s ask the priest_.

Athelstan smiles. ‘I remember very well. But I was a different person then. As you just said.’ 

Ragnar tries not to think about them and it is all he can see. He knows her wants. How she would ride him half the night, as if he was a horse or a bull, even when he tried to shake her off. Thighs as good as iron vices. 

‘I think, Ragnar -’ Athelstan looks as if he is reading a big book. ‘I think you have to let her go.’ 

It would be like cutting off his arm. ‘Would you let your god go?’

‘Are we talking about gods?’ 

Lagertha is all the goddesses. All of them. ‘Everything is about the gods.’ He walks off, knowing that it impossible to hate his friend, with his all-god eyes. Floki was right. _Everyone_ loves Athelstan.

***

‘Will you tell me some of Odin’s words?’ Sansa was lying behind Rollo, curled around him in a way that made her think of two shells cupped together, breathing their own sea-sounds, listening for the other’s.

He turned his head round a little and spoke to the ceiling. ‘Only if you will sing to me.’

She trailed a finger along one edge of the tattoo, coiled like a rope-knot, on his shoulder blade. ‘You first.’ 

He rolled over onto his back and breathed in deeply. Sansa tucked herself into him, imagining words being drawn in from the sea-air outside, into his bones. ‘I was young and alone on an empty road, I had lost my wyrd and my way.’ His words tilted and fell, like little waves. ‘But I found another and my richness grew, for man is the joy of man.’

He remained looking up at the roof, hands behind his head. She knew what he was thinking. What it meant to him. His battles with Ragnar, his love for him. But though he spoke that last line, she knew it was not enough. Not quite.

‘You must be different,’ she said, softly. ‘You must not try and be the same. He can learn from you as much as you can learn from him.’

He turned his head to her, his face sheer wood. ‘How?’

‘You are so good with Bjørn. And I know that Ragnar is – he is not so comfortable sometimes, at being his father.’ She put a hand on his cheek. ‘And I know that you don’t want to just be a warrior, but you are one. The best one. And you can use that to your advantage. To lead.’ His eyes slid away from her again. ‘Not just to fight. To lead men. I have seen you do it. You do it well.’

Rollo looked back at her, and she could see his thoughts travelling, as if weaving through dark trees. Then he blinked, light coming into the forest, and he turned suddenly, pulling her underneath him, his elbows by her ears. He smelt of sage and earth. 

‘I found Billing’s daughter on her bed,’ he said, his voice like spiced feast-wine. ‘Asleep in the sun’s embrace.’ He put his tongue behind her ear and licked a salt-trail down her neck. ‘And lordships and land seemed nothing then, if I could lie all my life in her sunlight.’ 

It was as if his words – Odin’s words – made the walls of the house melt away and the sun pour in. Sansa smiled a smile that came from the roots of her, and from the sun, and from his warmth, a warmth that spread like summer. 

He raised his eyebrows, his face still very close. The fine scars on his cheeks made her think of rivers on old maps. ‘It is your turn.’

She stared up at him. ‘For what?’

His fingers folded through her hair. ‘I have given you my skaldic gifts, now you give me yours.’ His thigh shifted up between her legs.

She made an involuntary sound that was part-gasp, part-hum. ‘I don’t know what to sing.’

‘I don’t care. I won’t know what you are singing.’ A smile like butter on new-baked bread as the pressure from his thigh increased. ‘You can sing about a dog shitting as long as you make it sound pretty.’

Sansa turned onto her side and he lay facing her, the tattoos on his chest a little closer together, and then she knew exactly what she would sing - the shreds of a long Northman song that seemed to tell the story of their whole lives, from the creation of the nine realms to Ragnarok, though she only knew the first few verses so far. Helga had been teaching it to her. She sang just a small part of it, about the sun and the moon, still unfamiliar with their strange new sky-world, not knowing where to put themselves.

And as she did so, her voice seeming loud in this quiet house, Rollo gazed at her, his eyes moving from sun to moon and back again, before his thigh found its way between her legs again, and then his fingers, and then his mouth.

***

The boats were almost finished. Just one was left, the inner boards being bound with pine-tar, and women weaving its great twin-sail in the longhouse, if your nephews would only stay off it.

‘Start praying,’ said Floki, behind you.

‘I never stop praying,’ you said, at the same time as your brother said, ‘What for?’ 

Floki spat into the sand and shook his head. ‘We will be putting all our trust in Aegir and Njörðr. All our trust in that little Blóðughadda.’ He slid a look like a burning boat along to you. You made your eyes into stones and stared back.

Ragnar put his fingers in Ragnvald’s hair and pulled it upwards until his son stood up on his toes. ‘You have done well, Floki.’

Floki put his head on one side, then the other, drawing his lips together as if they were the strings of a tunic, and looked up at the mountains. ‘When do we leave?’

‘After the midsummer feast.’ Your brother ruffled Ragnvald’s hair and leant down to him. ‘We will make everyone drunk and happy before we go.’ Ragnvald smiled an old, wise smile. ‘And then no one will mind when Floki’s boats break into little pieces and we all go and visit Rán.’

‘Ragnar.’ 

‘What?’ he said, still addressing your nephew. ‘It is all you talk about. How everything will go wrong.’

‘ _Ragnar_.’ Floki’s voice had grown more serious. 

Your brother looked at him.

‘Why is the day darkening when there are no clouds in the sky?’ 

You looked up, and you could see that, even though it was the middle of the afternoon, what he said was true. The day was losing its light.

***

Sansa had the corner of the sail on her lap, its stray threads rough against her skirts. It was good to be with the other women. They accepted her and her skill at needlework.

‘Sansa.’ Hvitserk was there, with grasshopper fingers on her shoulder. 

‘Hello,’ she said to him, in a light voice. ‘I can’t tell you any dragon-stories right now, but maybe later -’

‘No,’ he said, and pulled at her sleeve. ‘Come on.’

Outside, it was unlike it had been for a long time - the hundreds of men and women working and camping around Kattegat, and the layers of hammering and shouting. Now it was still.

Hvitserk had led her by the hand to the curve of the bay, where Rollo stood with Ragnar, Floki and others. It was as if a spell had been cast on them – on everyone. And she realised that something else was still. The birds had stopped singing.

Rollo hardly glanced at her when she joined him. They were all looking up at the mountains. Past the mountains. Perhaps Floki had not been tricking her. Perhaps there were gods up there. 

There was a strange, halfling light. Lavender and grey. The trees at the base of the mountains on either side of them had become black-green, the way they did at twilight.

‘Are you doing this?’ Rollo’s voice seemed to match the hushed colour of the sky. 

‘Doing what?’ she whispered back.

‘Look at the sun,’ he said.

Sansa placed a hand above her forehead and blinked up quickly at the sun. Enough to see something that made her gasp. 

A black curve, like a rind, was appearing on the sun’s right-hand side. The sun was slowly being covered.

***

‘It is Ragnarok,’ says Floki, in a dagger-whisper.

‘It is not Ragnarok,’ says Ragnar. ‘Ragnarok will be a little noisier than this.’

‘It is Odin, then. A sign. A sign that we must not go. He is covering his remaining eye. It is death.’

Around them, many people are standing still, mouths open. Some children are crying. There are prayers thrown up into the air.

‘It is the moon,’ says Athelstan, near his shoulder. Ragnar looks at him. ‘I think the moon is covering the sun. I have read about it.’

‘ _Read_ about it,’ says Floki in a voice like an axe-blade. ‘Not everything is in your Christian books. It is a sign that this journey will end in terror and death for all of us.’

It is incredible. It seems to be as Athelstan says. The moon covering the sun, sailing slowly, as if the sun is drawing a thick fur over itself.

‘Hati and Sköll,’ says Rollo, under his breath, staring upwards. ‘They must be arguing.’

The little wolf cub makes a tiny cough-howl.

‘Perhaps it is a sign,’ says Ragnar. The Bright One, the Speeder, meeting the Fair-Wheel. ‘A sign that nothing is impossible.’ That the moon can be a day-star. That it can be done.

There is a sound next to him. Sansa has fallen to the ground.

Her eyes are white.

***

_\- the moon covering the sun. The pull of the moon. The tides. The moon pulling a howl out of her and marbled milk running through her veins. She is running, and there is heat, and the smell of deer in her nose._

_She is not alone. Three others are with her. One female, two male. She is the eldest, and she is leading. One young, raggedy wolf. One who limps. The female is small but there is fierceness in her, and darkness. They are all together and yet – it is as if she is bounding across different landscapes, their light and heat changing as she blinks. Dark forest with the female. A cold place with the scruffy one. One tucked among tree-roots and tunnels. And – there is another, faint as a mist, in hills so white that they blind. The wolves slope through the trees, through their different lands, slip-sliding shadows, looking for deer, looking for lions_ -

***

‘Sansa.’ You were crouching over her and you made no shadow. The sun had disappeared and a cave-mouth darkness was in its place. 

Time seemed to have been caught in a fist. Rock-coloured waves still. No sound.

Your brother was standing over you, looking at her. Everyone was looking at her. The priest, his eyes wide, curious. 

Ylva was licking her face. You let her. Sansa blinked and her eyes went from white to blue, ice to cornflowers. She looked as if she had slept for many days. Sweat on her forehead.

‘Bran?’ she said. Her voice was fog.

Bran. Her brother.

‘No,’ you said. ‘It is me. Rollo.’ 

‘But -’ her eyes were little meadow butterflies, taking in everyone. ‘Rickon.’

‘It is getting lighter again,’ said Floki, quietly. ‘Perhaps Loki was playing a trick.’ He gave a little giggle, like a tiny bird.

‘What was that?’ Ragnar said to you.

‘What?’

‘ _That_.’ He jerked his head down to her.

You put a hand on her brow and she gazed at you. ‘She dreams wolf.’

‘Wolf.’

You looked straight at him. ‘Yes.’

***

Her mouth felt full of sand. Like the day she had woken up here, curled up like driftwood and seaweed on the shore. The moon had covered the sun and she had imagined Rollo’s tattoos loosened from his chest and floating. And then she had been in the forest, the desert, the snow.

Sansa sat up and looked out at the sea, which was dark, velvety. She let her eyes be drawn to the furthest point between the mountains, to the ink-line of the horizon. It was as if her heart was travelling in front of her, buffeting in the wind like a sail, moving outwards to that line, and further. Something was tugging her in that direction.

She swallowed. ‘My brothers. Arya.’ Her tongue was heavy. ‘They – they are alive.’ Rollo was staring at her, his eyes dark, concerned, understanding. ‘We have to go back,’ she said to him. ‘I – they’re there.’ It wasn’t just the direwolves she felt. It was _them_. As sure as there was blood in her veins. She wasn’t the only Stark left. She looked up at Ragnar. ‘We are going back.’ 

Ragnar glanced up at the sky, which was becoming bleached, summery again. ‘What do you think I have been planning for the last nine months?’ he said, half-impatient, his eyes brighter than the sky.

She knew that she would not follow. That she would lead. ‘No,’ she said.

His lip curled up, the edge of a cabbage-leaf. Challenge in his eyes. ‘No?’

‘We’re not going to King’s Landing. If we get there, we are going North. We are going to find my brothers. And my sister. They are there. Somewhere.’ She sat up. ‘You are going to help me take back Winterfell.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Skywatch** :
> 
> The UK had a solar eclipse a month or so ago, and I wanted to use it as it had made me think so much of Hati and Sköll and also seemed to perfectly complement the making-of-the-world poem below! 
> 
> **Norse Mythology School** : 
> 
> Rollo speaks more of Odin’s _**Hávamál**_ – I reckon that boy knows it all by heart!
> 
> Here’s a straight translation; the one in the chapter is my own adaptation:
> 
> Young was I once, I walked alone,  
> and bewildered seemed in the way;  
> then I found me another and rich I thought me,  
> for man is the joy of man.
> 
> NB I used the word ‘wyrd’ – this is an Anglo-Saxon word which roughly means ‘fate’, but also has suggestions of dreams and mysticism.
> 
> and later:
> 
> Billing's daughter I found on her bed,  
> fairer than sunlight sleeping,  
> and the sweets of lordship seemed to me nought,  
> save I lived with that lovely form.
> 
> ***
> 
> For Sansa’s song, I used a part of the _**Völuspá**_ , the most famous of the Poetic Edda. In it, a Volva or wise-woman tells Odin of the creation of the world. It was probably written by a 10th-century Icelandic poet, but this is about as far back as I could find for a Norse song!
> 
> And I wanted an excuse to learn how to pronounce some Old Norse.  
> [Here’s me singing the bit that Sansa sings!](http://yourlisten.com/swimmingfox/sansas-norse-song)
> 
> The Old Norse words to Sansa's song are:
> 
> Sól varp sunnan,  
> sinni mána,  
> hendi inni hægri  
> um himinjöður;  
> sól þat né vissi,  
> hvar hon sali átti,  
> máni þat né vissi,  
> hvat hann megins átti,  
> stjörnur þat né vissu  
> hvar þær staði áttu.
> 
> Translation:
> 
> Sun turned from the south, sister of Moon  
> Her right arm rested on the rim of the sky  
> She had no inkling of where her hall was,  
> The stars did not know their places,  
> Nor Moon a notion of his might
> 
> ***
> 
> There are lovely descriptions of the moon in the Poetic Edda, in the poem _**Alvíssmál**_ , which Ragnar refers to:
> 
> Alvíss said:  
> Moon it is called by men,  
> the Ball by gods,  
> the Whirling Wheel in Hel,  
> the Speeder by giants,  
> the Bright One by dwarves,  
> by elves Tally-of-Years.
> 
> Thórr said:  
> Say to me, Alvíss,  
> for it seems to me  
> there is nothing you do not know:  
> what is the sun called,  
> that is seen by men,  
> in all the worlds there are?
> 
> Alvíss said:  
> Sól it is called by men,  
> Sunna by the gods,  
> by dwarves, Dvalinn's toy,  
> by giants Everglow,  
> by elves Fair-Wheel,  
> All-Bright by the sons of gods.
> 
>  _ **Dagstjarna**_ (‘day-star’) is a word for the morning-star (Venus) but another poem uses it to describe the sun: Sól ek sá / sanna dagstjörnu, "The sun I saw / true day-star".
> 
> Some sea gods!
> 
>  _ **Aegir**_ – jötunn (giant) and god of the sea.  
>  _ **Njörðr**_ – god of the sea, seafaring, wind, fishing, wealth, and crop fertility


	43. Sansa And Midsummer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Editor ZoeSong.

‘What will happen in West-er-os?’ You had talked to Sansa of fate but it didn’t hurt to check with someone else. To make sure that the gods were listening.

The seer sounded as if he had just woken up. All he seemed to do was sleep. ‘Who is it that says you are going to West-er-os?’

You leaned forward, as close as you could bear to be to him. ‘You mean we will not? We will die?’

‘I did not say that.’

You clasped your hands. It was almost the way Athelstan looked when he prayed, when he thought no one was looking. ‘What sort of man will I be?’

The seer gave a dull groan like the creak of a ship. ‘The man you are. The man you have been made into. Moulded and carved.’ He put his fingers out, fingers like whale blubber, and touched a string of stones near him.

‘Will I ever rule? Rule – somewhere?’ _Anywhere_.

The seer coughed a laugh. Or laughed a cough. Either way, there was spit and darkness. ‘You already rule, in some ways. Hearts. Minds.’

Did he mean Sansa? 

‘There will be many people who know your name, Rol-lo.’ He drew the word out as if it were something he was letting melt and stew on his tongue. ‘Many people who are not yet born. People will speak your name. They will mutter your name when they go to sleep at night.’

In fear, perhaps. That sounded good. You tried to see what he seemed to be seeing, but it was all murk and mist in front of you, as it always was. However much you asked him, he was the only one piercing it.

Time to go. You left, to find the person you knew would say your name tonight, over and over, if you used every last trick up your sleeve.

***

She dreamt that she was tangled up in branches and woke up wrapped up in him, legs and arms folded together. Moisture like a summer woodland after rain.

Rollo shifted.

'Good morning,’ Sansa said, into his hair. _Góðan morgen_. She never stopped enjoying how that felt on her tongue.

Rollo took a breath as long as an oar-stroke and blinked his sleep away before answering her in a hum that seemed more animal than man. ‘Tell me how to say it in your language.’ He caught her look of slight surprise. ‘What? I want to learn too.’ His voice became faint and he gazed somewhere past her ear. ‘Not just Ragnar.’

She told him. It felt strange to use these particular words again – she had hardly done so in months, except once or twice to Athelstan. 

They sounded rough-hewn in his mouth, like tree trunks half-carved. It made her smile to hear him say them. She could not imagine that he would be greeting everyone gently in Westeros. ‘Tell me something else,’ he said.

Sansa gave him the words for _house, wolf, bed. Fingers_.

He stared at the roof, holding her hand to his mouth, ghosts of the words coming again as he tested them. 

As she heard them for a second time, and a third, she had a flash of something that seemed like a memory, but that she knew could not be. Both of them standing in a cold place, stark with woods and hills and a sky much like this one, and Rollo saying those words, to her, to others around them. But it was not here. It was Winterfell.

Sansa thought of three more words, each with two syllables, that she had wanted to say for a while, now. In a small, careful voice, she said them, one ushered after the other.

He looked at her. ‘What do those mean?’

She was aware of her own pulse, its little twin-beat. 'It means I love you.'

For a moment, his face became something she had never seen before. Vulnerable. Then his eyes turned into deep woodland and she saw him swallow. He seemed to be waiting - perhaps for her to say something else. She stayed very still.

His lips came apart and still he watched her, not speaking, before finally the words came, very quiet. 'And I love you.' 

_Ek ann þér_. Words she had never had spoken to her in this language - in _any_ language before. 

He suddenly propped himself up on his elbow, so that he was leaning over her, his hair hanging down. 'I love you for you, _raf refr_.'

 _For you_. Words that were even more precious. She felt something rise from her, like sea spray or fronds of summer air. 'So if I wasn’t a ‘princess’, you would?’ She allowed her grin to form slowly, as if drawn with an arm in meadow-grass.

His came just as lazily. ‘Yes.’

‘If I was just a free woman, you would?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if I was a slave girl, you would still love me?' They both knew that it wasn't true. Not quite.

A tiny laugh-breath in his throat. 'Yes. Even if you were a girl washed up from the sea-bed.' 

She grinned, and let her smile dissolve into something salty-sweet as she realised she knew exactly what she would say next. ‘Then -’ she took a breath, a breath that felt like a dove leaving her mouth, flying up into clouds the colour of lavender, bird’s eggs, moth-grey. ‘Be my husband.’

***

‘What?’ You had heard her perfectly well. Words that seemed polished with a rubbing cloth until they shone.

Sansa sat up, knelt in front of you like one of those woman-priests in England, tugged the furs around her. ‘I want to marry you.’

The air had turned into something soft and spinning. ‘I should be asking you.’

She was not a woman-priest. She was a slave-girl, free-woman, princess, and yet none of these things, somehow. ‘You asked me already,’ she said.

‘And you said no.’ You tugged the furs away from her a little, so you could look at her better.

‘I didn’t say no. I just didn’t say yes.’ A long breath that seemed to straighten her further. ‘I am ready now.’

‘Will you not want to marry someone in your own lands?’ She shook her head. You sat up. ‘Why do you want to marry me?’ You could not help it. The words sailed out on a ship’s worth of breath.

Sansa stayed very still for a moment, her eyes drifting past your ear, to the wall. Perhaps she was trying just as hard as you were to think of reasons. ‘My father once said – a long time ago –‘ she looked at her palms as if they were maps. 'He said I should have someone brave, and gentle and strong.’ She looked up at you finally. ‘And he was right. And you have made _me_ stronger. You told me a long time ago that I could fight.’

Her shoulders were broader than when you had first seen her, lying half-dead in the longhouse. It was as if she was now part-made of shield.

She had not finished. ‘And you are not just strong in the way you might think. You gave yourself up to your brother. You made yourself humble.’ 

Your head became heavy stone, but she put her hand against your beard and brought your chin up again. ‘And you – make me feel safe. And you know poetry.’ You did. You had learnt many lines when you were young, even though Ragnar would hear you saying them at night and throw pebbles and rabbit droppings at you. ‘And you’re – good in bed.’

This was true enough. You raised your eyes up to her. ‘Most girls would have said that first.’

‘I am not most girls.’

You gulped a big sigh, as big as Thor drinking up the sea. ‘No, you are not.’

Sansa’s eyes became big, round, serious. ‘If we won the North, we could stay there. You could be – Lord Stark.’ She glanced down, checking her palm-maps. ‘If you wanted.’

The wolf cub sat up in her corner by the firepit, her ears like little mountain peaks.

Rollo Lothbrook. Lord Stark. 

‘We could -’ a breath struck her like a slap of wind. ‘Have children.’

The air spun again. 

‘Help me take back Win-ter-fell,’ she said. 

You pulled at her fur once more, and she held onto it and tumbled down on top of you. Her laugh fell into your mouth and you turned it into a gasp. ‘Such a Northwoman. So demanding.’ 

The feel of her skin against the bristle of the fur. The feel of her arse in your palm. The inside of her, like prising a barnacle off a rock. Like prising many barnacles off and letting them run down your chin. 

‘You haven’t said yes,’ she said, somewhere above you.

‘Yes,’ you said, into the dark, wet salt of her.

***

‘King Ragnar.’

The big earl, Olesen, and his twin, Edman, stand like two burial stones. They are so stiff. They do not even seem moved by girls full of ale falling into their laps.

‘What is it?’

‘It is about Princess Sansa.’

Sansa. That name has become threaded between his ears and keeps twisting there in his skull. Such a meek girl when she arrived, thinking they were all going to imprison her, kill her, eat her. And now – now she finds him in his longhouse and tells him what they are going to do. Tells _him_. As if he has not studied the maps over all of autumn and winter and spring. As if he has not found out everything he needs to know. There is little fertile land in the North. There are no riches. Kingslanding is the heart of West-er-os. Not the north, which sounds like it would not know summer if it reared up and bit it on the arse. _Sansa_.

‘What about her?’ he says, scraping his thumb into the arm of his throne and staring very hard at it.

Edman shifts. ‘She seems a strong-headed woman. Almost a Northwoman.’

Even the earls say so. Ragnar scowls at the floor. They will be leaving in two days. _He_ will say where they go. Not her.

‘It would be good to make alliances with her people,’ Olesen says. ‘To strengthen the bonds between our two lands.’

‘Yes,’ Ragnar hisses the word through his teeth. This is what he has been saying, and all the time Sansa has said that she can only ever be friends with his son. These wolf-visions – whatever they are – he cannot decide what this means. If she is more like his people, or less like them.

Olesen coughs. ‘Earl Edman has a wife and family at home -’ Edman does not look happy about this. ‘But I lost my wife to sickness two years ago. I would glad to offer my hand to the princess if you would grant it.’

Ragnar stops scraping and tilts his head up at the big earl. He imagines the look on Sansa’s face when he betrothes her. Perhaps it would be worth it for that alone. If she will not marry Bjørn. ‘Let me summon her,’ he says, cheerfully.

***

You saw Sansa trail up to the longhouse. Sansa, who had demanded you marry her. Normally, you didn’t like being told what to do. But this – your head was full of a feeling you had never had before. _Children_ , she had said. 

Ragnar was leaning on the door frame as she climbed the steps, and glaring at her back as he followed her inside. His look was not one you would hope for from a future brother-in-law. It was time to tell him. 

When you entered the longhouse, Olesen and Edman were there, and they were listening to Sansa tell them and Ragnar what she had told you. North. Bannermen. Houses. Alliances. Her home, Win-ter-fell. Her face now was as if she had been fighting, or running, or both. Olesen’s face was mushy, his eyes soft. Staring at her. You did not like it.

‘Once we have Win-ter-fell,’ she said, ‘we have the North. And then you can go south with all of your men and many others. And perhaps take Kingslanding.’ Bjørn had wandered in. She glanced at him. ‘I will see to it.’

Ragnar, fidgeting on his kingseat, raised his eyebrows. He must have been getting many splinters under his thumbnail. ‘I have something to say,’ he said, and straightened a little. He let out a breath like he had just drunk a cup of wine and widened his eyes. Pleased with himself. ‘Earl Olesen has made the kind offer of marriage.’

Sansa looked at him. ‘To who?’

‘To you.’ Your brother sent those words out like two little moths.

Your _raf refr_ opened and shut her mouth. 

‘Ragnar,’ you said.

‘I can’t,’ said Sansa at the same time.

‘What is the problem? You said you would not marry my son, so I have decided to betroth you to Earl Olesen.’ He looked bored.

Olesen coughed again, and stepped forward. ‘Princess Sansa, I would have the great honour -’

‘She is not marrying you,’ you said, not looking at him.

Lagertha and Athelstan had come in, laughing. They stopped as they saw everyone, their smiles falling off their faces like dead birds shot out of the sky.

‘Why not?’ said your brother, the challenge in his voice edged like a blade. He addressed her. ‘So you will marry Bjørn now?’

Bjørn leaned against a post and sighed.

‘No,’ said Sansa, in a clear-water voice. ‘I can’t.’ Eyes on you, pinning you to her like a brooch. ‘I am marrying Rollo.’

Olesen and Edman looked at each other. 

Ragnar made a ragged, old bull sound and pushed himself off his throne. ‘Why is everyone forgetting that I am the king? Me.’ He thrust a thumb into his chest before his hand ghosted out in front of him to Sansa. ‘Not you.’ Towards you. ‘Or you. Or you.’ He glared at Lagertha and the other earls. ‘I decide where we go. _I_ decide who my son marries.’ 

‘Father,’ said Bjørn.

Lagertha folded her arms. ‘You are forgetting that your son has a mother. And I say that Bjørn should not marry Sansa.’

‘And what, she should marry my brother?’ Ragnar stood in front of her. ‘You are happy with this match? Perhaps you are. You slept with him too, after all. Like you sleep with everyone.’

That was it. 

You stepped forward, and hit him, very hard, on the side of the head.

***

‘Perhaps I should not have done that.’

Lagertha and Bjørn and Rollo and Athelstan are standing over him. There is sky in a little square between all of their heads.

‘If you hadn’t, I would have,’ says Lagertha.

A pain like Thor and Thrud and Magni and Modi have attacked him all at once. Like a boulder is sitting on his skull.

‘And if you hadn’t, then I would have,’ says Bjørn, who seems to have the voice of your father.

Athelstan is just gazing at him with the tiniest smile-frown.

Rollo puts his hand out. Ragnar looks at it. It might as well have been a hammer. His brother had not hit him since he was an almost-man, for breaking his shield in two. He had not hit him when Lagertha had chosen him over Rollo. He had not even hit him in the battle with Jarl Borg, even though he had killed many of his own men. 

Ragnar sits up. Someone is playing a loud drum in his head.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Rollo. ‘It is not the way to treat a king.’

Ragnar takes his brother’s hand, and is pulled up as if he is a sack of feathers. ‘No,’ he says. ‘It is not.’ 

He looks at Rollo. The warrior-wolf is there, in his jaw and his shoulders and his eyes. It always will be. But perhaps there is something else. A tenderness that normally only comes out when he has drunk his weight in ale and Odin’s words are dribbling endlessly out of his mouth. Sansa stands behind him, her arms folded, pale and fierce, like a sapling made of iron.

The seer had said his family would grow. He had always thought it had meant Bjørn. Maybe it had not.

‘But perhaps it is the way to treat a brother.’ He lets go of Rollo’s hand and wanders past the earls, trying to stay straight, wondering when the stars of Odin’s wagon are going to fall out of his head.

***

‘I am going to marry you.’ 

Sansa and Rollo and Ylva had left the Midsummer feast, walking down the path, past the bonfires and the dancing to his house. _Their_ house. Until Winterfell. A small wattle and daub hut becoming a castle. Even she was starting to believe it possible.

Rollo had stars in his eyes, far-off and glinting. He had drunk a whole hornful of ale in one because Floki had said that his daughter would cry otherwise. Angrboda, standing squatly on the table in front of him, had watched Rollo, wide-eyed, before clapping when he wiped his mouth. He had left a little bit of ale-foam on her nose.

Rollo wandered into Sansa a little bit, and she shouldered his weight as best she could. ‘I am going to marry _you_ ,’ she said. 

‘Not if I get there first.’

Ragnar had still been looking like he wanted to drown everyone, especially she and Rollo. Rollo had said that he would come round, but it left a sour-rye taste in her mouth to know that she had displeased him so much. However much they clashed, he had always believed her, before anyone else. His curiosity had probably kept her alive.

She was getting married tomorrow. _Tomorrow_ , the day before they sailed west. It was very fast, but she wanted to do it before setting foot on one of Floki’s boats, the boats that had grown from her drawings to magnificent wooden beasts in the bay. She wanted to arrive in Westeros - if they ever found it – strong, and bound to him and to these people who were her family now. Her brothers were alive. Arya was alive. She was so sure. And even Jon – she felt guilty that she had not thought of him enough. He _was_ her blood, even if only some of it. And yet she wanted to bring her new family to them, to strengthen the old one. And if they didn’t ever make it – then she would come back here with him, and this would always be her home.

‘Tell me again,’ said Rollo, his words bumping up against each other.

‘Tell you what?’

‘That you will love me even if we find West-er-os.’

‘Even if we find Westeros. Or if we do not.’

He stopped suddenly next to an awning, putting his hand on it as he peered down at her. Ylva was wrapping herself around their ankles. ‘I never thought -’ A half-sigh caught in his throat. ‘I never thought this would happen to me,’ he said. ‘That I would find someone I -’

A shadow and a soft noise behind him and he suddenly stopped, taking an odd, jerking step towards her. He put his hand around his back, and looked at it. His palm was dark, and wet.

***

Red.

You turned, lunged. It was all very quick.

A knife in your ribs, so fast you hardly felt it. A tiny, sharp, biting pain, becoming softer, more liquid. 

Your head was full of ale. He stabbed you again, in the side of the stomach. Metal. Tunic. Flesh. 

‘ _No_.’ Sansa. Movement.

Colby. Colden. The man you had dumped in the pig-shit.

He headbutted you and you went down. Boots in your stomach. Iron in your mouth. Pain. 

‘You thought I would forget my humiliation?’ A voice above you, and your woman, your almost-wife, your _raf refr_ , yelling.

***

He had stabbed Rollo twice. She could smell wine, and ale, and blind anger. He reeked of it.

The dancing and the bonfires and the singing continued, loudly. Everyone was in a Midsummer trance, and far away.

Now he was lifting his leg back to kick him again. Rollo was moving on the ground, but hunched up in a way that she had never seen.

Ylva gave a low snarl-growl and jumped up at his leg. The man kicked her in the belly and her yelp was high and sharp as her body was flung into the shadows.

Heartbeats. Sansa reached down to her skirts, to her boot. Lagertha’s dagger came back up, curled in her hand. Heartbeats and drums and death. Her own voice.

She tried to get at him from the side and he pushed her away, and kicked Rollo again. Rollo’s hand was fumbling for a rock, and the man kicked that away too.

Darting behind him, she jumped up onto his back, hand on his jaw, arm reaching round to slash him on the neck. Force in her arm. His teeth on her hand. She felt the flesh tear. He crumpled to the ground, one of her legs and arms crushed beneath him, rocks against her back. Blood bubbling over her fingers.

***

‘Father!’ His son rushes in. ‘It is Rollo.’ It is a voice that doesn’t suggest that his brother is just throwing his ale up into a ditch.

Ragnar follows, quickly.

Rollo is lying next to the doorway of a tanning shed. He is still. Sansa is crouched over him, speaking very quickly in her own tongue, in his own, the words all mixed up together. 

Athelstan is there. ‘They were attacked. Earl Borgersen’s man.’

A tall man who Ragnar has only ever seen drunk is stretched out in the mud. An open smile on his neck, his head off to the side.

Sansa is saying ‘no no no ________ not now please _________ no not now,’ and ‘please don’t be dead, ___________, please don’t be dead,’ over and over again. He realises that the pile of fur nearby is her wolf cub.

The last time his brother had not moved, four horses had run over him. ‘Rollo killed him?’

‘No,’ said Athelstan, more quietly, looking down at them both.

Two men are battering the door down to use as a stretcher. There is blood all around Rollo, as if it has rained heavily. He is still not moving.

Bjørn leans down to Borgersen’s man, his hand near him. He squats in front of Sansa. She looks at him, shaking. Face wet. He draws his thumb down her forehead, and leaves the dead man’s blood there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> On June 23rd, it is the celebration of the Summer Solstice, when the power of the Sun is at its height. At this time most foreign trade was conducted, as well as as shipping, fishing expeditions, and raiding. It is thus a festival of power and activity.
> 
> The god Baldur is said to have been sacrificed at this time, to be reborn at Jul. Sigurd is also said to have been slain by treachery at Midsummer by his blood-brothers Hagan and Gunthur.
> 
> Ragnar refers to 'Thor and Thrud and Magni and Modi'. _Thrud_ is the daughter of Thor, and the Norse goddess of war. _Modi_ and _Magni_ are the sons of Thor, their names meaning 'angry' and 'strong' respectively.
> 
>  **Skywatch** :
> 
> The constellation of the seven stars (known commonly as the Big Dipper, or the Plough in the UK), was called **_Odin’s wagon_** by the Norsemen.


	44. Sansa And Rollo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **With thanks to Editor ZoeSong.**
> 
> **This is going up early because... because of GoT Season 5 Episode 6.**
> 
> **And it's for everyone who commented on the last chapter.**

Ragnar stands inside the doorway, a goat kid in his arms. It is lighter than all of his sons. ‘I have come to visit you one last time before we go.’

The seer sits back. ‘One last time. Yes.’ His words are as slow as a dead man being dragged through mud.

Ragnar comes and sits close to him. He does not care about the smell. ‘Tell me. What will we find?’

‘What will you _not_ find?’ The seer sighs, and it is like the air escaping from a dying cow. 

‘What does that mean? That I will not find anything?’

‘I did not say that.’

The goat wriggles. The seer is not a talkative mood.

‘What will you say then? Why don’t you give me a story that will make me understand?’

The seer looks at his palms and Ragnar thinks of all of the people who have put their tongues there. All their belief in the gods, absorbed into this man’s skin.

‘Stories,’ the seer says, making them sound like enemies that have been around so long that they are almost friends. ‘So many stories. Stories come and go, they ebb and flow, never different, but no one the same. But they all start and end in darkness.’ He gives a gloomy, long groan. ‘All stories come to an end, Ragnar Lothbrok. Even yours.’

Ragnar tries to understand, and gives up. ‘I have brought you a gift before I go, old man.’

The seer’s words are like worn gravestones. ‘I have no need of goats.’ He sounds sad, and disgusted.

Ragnar hugs the little goat to his chest. ‘It is not the goat.’ He reaches behind him and pulls out the long _seiðstafr_ , which has bronze woven into it. He has had it made especially. The seer has told him many things over the years, and some he has not understood until much later. Perhaps it will be the same this time.

The seer cradles the top of the staff in his hand, a thumb slowly rubbing over the gemstone at its centre. He hums quietly.

Ragnar ducks his head as he goes back into the bright daylight. He wonders if they have seers in West-er-os, and if they are telling the kings that strange warriors are coming. Or if they are doing the same as his seer – telling them everything and nothing at all, all at once. He scratches the goat kid’s head, and it nuzzles him, licks his nose. He wraps one arm around it and begins to walk to where his brother is getting married today. 

A gift, he thinks, incredulous. He would never give anyone this goat.

***

‘I am happy for you, Sansa.’ Lagertha was standing watching Helga braid Sansa’s hair so tightly against her scalp that it hurt.

Sansa looked up at her, her skin still tingling from the steaming bath and cold-plunge she had been given. Lagertha was wearing a deep red dress that made Sansa think of blood and battle and beauty all at once. ‘Thank you.’

‘You are good for Rollo.’ Lagertha’s voice was like a warm breeze but as always her eyes were watchful, thoughtful.

Something had happened between them, long ago – Sansa knew that after Ragnar’s outburst when he had shamed himself far more than he had shamed her. But Rollo had said then that it had been a different time, and he had been a different man. She knew how different one could be. It had only taken her most of a year. 

‘And he is good for me,’ Sansa said.

She had lived by his bedside for weeks as he had recovered. His mind had seemed as slippery as a fish for a while, weaving between a dream-world and their own, the hemlock taking its grip on him. He had held her arm tightly and muttered of bridges and ninth worlds and, more than once, she had heard _Siggy_ drift in a whisper from him. Sansa had watched as healers had fed him leek soup, applied iron and fire, and cut away the black parts of the wounds. His skin had been stitched as carefully as the sails of the boats.

She had killed a man. In the days that had followed, she had watched Rollo’s chest rise and fall, and felt the jagged tearing of his almost-murderer’s skin under Lagertha’s dagger, again and again. The blood guttering in his throat as the man had half-lain on top of her, before someone had found them. It had sent her running into a corner to vomit, more than once, as she remembered it. But she did not feel guilt. ‘It had to be done,’ Athelstan had said to her. ‘Do not mourn for him.’

Now, Lagertha smiled at her. ‘Tell me, what are the men like in West-er-os?’

Helga grinned and tugged harder at Sansa’s hair. She must have needed hair to fill her pillows.

Sansa thought of many men in Westeros, imagining all of them gathered together in one place – the training ground at King’s Landing, looking up at her, swords in their hands. Joffrey. Her father. Robb. King Robert. Jaime Lannister. Tyrion. The Hound. Ser Loras. ‘They are different,’ she said, quietly. ‘And they are just the same.’

Lagertha gazed at her, before her eyes roamed over Sansa’s hair. ‘You look beautiful. Like Freya.’

Sansa turned to Helga for approval. Helga beamed. ‘Good. And now for your eyes.’

***

She had been all winter, this frightened girl from her own North. Winter-cool and trembling like leaves that had their veins frozen with ice. 

And now she was all summer. Skin a little darker, freckles like sand-grains, and sun-warmed blood running through her veins. Even with all the time sitting by your side. A Northwoman. _Your_ Northwoman.

You had chosen to be married in the forest. Sansa had said she liked it there, and that it made her think of you. So now you stood in a clearing, your heart itching, Torstein pulling faces at you like an idiot, and Ragnar scratching at the bark of a tree as if there were secrets in there. 

Your brother had waited for almost two cycles of the moon for your wounds to heal. Any more and it might have been too late to travel at all. There had never been a suggestion that you would not come – instead he had kept all these men and women from the other villages here, waiting. You had woken from blood-dreams to find Sansa at your side, a soft blue bruise on her face, and sometimes, Ragnar, behind her in the shadows. 

She had killed a man for you. She had saved your life.

Your stomach grumbled. The worst thing had been not being able to eat without seeing it all again in a bucket an eyeblink later. Finally, perhaps, your appetite was finding its way back. It was like the return of Baldr after Ragnarok.

There was movement in the trees. Great white birds coming, except that they were not birds but _her_ – her and Lagertha and Helga and two of her new shieldmaiden friends, and all you could see was her, and you were blinded by her, as if you had stared at Sunna too long.

Hair knotted and braided along the sides. A crown of straw and white and green flowers. Black around her eyes that made her gaze seem like the sky and water and forest and ice and a dagger in your throat all at once. Her wolf – who had slept at your side these last weeks, her own bruises healing - trotting at her heel, with her own little straw-crown.

Sansa. She looked like Lagertha, and she looked like Thorunn, and she looked like herself. A red wolfmaiden. A goddess, though she was not one. For a moment, you thought of all the girls you had had, girls and women, and how you would not be able to have any of them again. And then you blinked and she was there, in front of you properly, a careful, strong smile on her face, and those girls and women all fell into the sea or dissolved into the air.

It was true. West-er-os could come to nothing and you wouldn’t care.

***

Rollo had his hair tied back, the way Sansa liked it best, where she could see all of the woody edges of his face, and his beard had been trimmed a little. A small hammer was strung from his belt. She remembered him cloaking her once near here, on a cold winter afternoon when she had run away from the beheading, when she was still unsure of him. Then, as now, there was a wolf embroidered in leather onto his new tunic, which was just a shade darker than the oak-leaves. 

Aslaug had had a dress made for her, the shade of the palest butter, with green ivy-leaves embroidered in falling trails on the skirts. Sansa thought of the dress she had worn as she stood next to Tyrion in the Great Sept, the cold-gleaming Lannister gold weighing down her shoulders. Now, she was in the colours of this land, these people – the winter snows and its long-growing greenness, held in the hushed woodland around them as she joined Rollo in the copse. He blinked slowly at her with a look that had returned as he had got better. Sombre and teasing at once, half-shadow and half-sunlight.

Everyone she knew here was gathered around them in a circle, their eyes kind. Helga joined Floki and their daughter next to a mound of large stones. Lagertha stood next to Athelstan, whose smile at Sansa was small, encouraging. 

The gyðja, a woman that was known as a great healer in Kattegat, stepped forward, her face deeply lined with age and a soft, wise smile. ‘Welcome,’ she said, in a voice as strong as an ash tree.

She held her hands out and Torstein stepped forward with a large, brown-pink sow on a leash. The pig huffed and squealed as he tried to tug her towards them, before he gave up and kicked it on the backside.

‘I sacrifice this sow in the name of Freyja,’ said the gyðja. ’So that she may bless this union with strength and with children.’ She drew her small blade quickly across the sow’s throat, and there was a dense, rapid scuffle and hoarse whining as the pig slumped to the ground.

The blood was collected in a bowl and placed on the mound of stones next to Floki, who was grinning his dark grin at them both, his arms folded. The gyðja returned with a bundle of fir-twigs, glistening with the blood she had dipped them in, and which she flung in a quick, deliberate movement at both of them. 

Sansa looked down at the blood on her dress, feeling its warmth seep through to her skin. Three colours, then. White, green and red.

***

There was no family for you to take Sansa from. She had told you of her father’s sword, a blade stronger than any other, and the name it had. Instead, the sword she gave you had a grained birch grip and brass twists that made you think of her hair. The more you looked at her, the more she looked like the finest, most beautiful weapon. The shield-blades of her shoulders and cheekbones. The metal gleam in her eye.

You hardly heard the gyðja, but said yes when you were supposed to, before Bjørn gave you Sansa’s sword.

Your own parents’ grave-mounds were far away. Instead, you had a new sword made for her, and not one from your family but one she could use. She was a shieldmaiden now, after all.

She took it from you, turning the slim blade over, looking at the birch-and-bone hilt, and you tried to imagine the son you might have, if the gods allowed it. Or - with Angrboda catching your eye as she wriggled in Helga’s arms behind Sansa, a dab of pig’s blood on either cheek – a daughter. Either would do.

‘Sansa, this sword represents the sacred bond between you both.’ She looked up at the gyðja, her face smooth as summer hills, and you knew that you would slay a thousand men for her. ‘Do you swear by the gods that you want to marry this man?’

‘I swear by the gods -’ she looked at you. ‘By your gods and by my gods, that I want to marry you.’

Floki looked at his feet. You could hear his breath as loudly as an earthquake coming. You did not care. She had her gods, and she had yours. It did not matter.

***

Two rings, dangling on the tops of their swords. They were identical. Runes engraved on the outside, and the Common Tongue on the inside. They were close to the words Rollo had spoken when he had first opened his eyes, full of pain and fear, and the words she had said back. ‘Remember me. I remember you. Love me. I love you.’

Sansa took Rollo’s ring off the top of her sword and placed it on his finger, repeating the words the gyðja addressed to her. He did the same, and his voice seemed surer than it had ever been.

‘I have something else for you,’ he said, gently enough that only she and the gyðja could hear, before pulling something out of his pocket.

Sansa looked at his palm. On it was the open-ended bracelet they called a torc, the metal as finely twisted as rope-twine. And at the ends were two sleek wolf’s heads.

‘For my battle-maiden,’ he said.

 _Battle-maiden_. Another flash of memory, of her first wedding, of how different she had felt then. The dull ache of terror and fury at being married to Lord Tyrion. Of everything she had endured at King’s Landing. 

She had begged Ragnar never to go back. And yet now – she looked to Westeros with a feeling that was very new, honed and carved like the dagger Lagertha had given her. Smooth and blood-drawing. 

It would be dangerous. She might be killed. But she was not afraid. 

***

She looked at you with fierce eyes, as if she was planning to eat you with turnips and sea-kale, but also with a different, faraway fierceness in her eyes. 

‘Thank you,’ she said, very quietly.

‘This union has been seen in the eyes of the gods,’ said the gyðja in her firm voice, turning slowly so that she could address everyone in the copse. Lagertha. Floki. Torstein, who was trying to stop Ylva from gnawing on the pig’s leg. Bjørn and your small nephews. ‘And in _your_ eyes. Everyone here is entrusted with keeping this man and woman safe, as much as they are with each other.’

There were nods and smiles. From almost everyone.

The gyðja turned to you both. ‘Then you are now husband and wife.’

‘No,’ you said. ‘Wait.’

***

Rollo’s face was dark, darker than it should be now, at this moment. Sansa looked up at him.

His eyes locked tight with hers. ‘I will not consider myself married until it has been blessed by Ragnar Lothbrok.’ His voice was firm, and smooth as a boulder. 

Ragnar had been standing holding Hvitserk in front of him, and glanced up as if he hardly been listening. ‘You do not need my word for this, brother.’

Rollo gazed at him. ‘I do.’

His brother stared back for a long moment, long enough that there began to be small, uncomfortable movements amongst the crowd. Then Ragnar opened up his arms and let Hvitserk fall to the ground, mostly onto his feet. He ambled up, and Sansa remembered when she had first heard that he was a king, this man who seemed sometimes like a servant, or a court fool, but who she knew was anything but. 

Ragnar breathed in, a breath that went to his chest, his shoulders, and finally to his lips, tugging them upwards. ‘Fine. I give you my blessing.’ The words sent out quickly, lightly.

Sansa put her hands on both of his cheeks, and kissed him, very close to his mouth. ‘Thank you, Ragnar.’

He raised his eyebrows, looking like he was savouring a wine or a new-brewed ale, before suddenly making his eyes wide. He slammed a hand against his heart, with a tiny gasp.

Rollo shook his head at him, his eyes rolling. Sansa bit her lip.

Ragnar’s eyes became crushed, softening ice. They flickered up to Rollo. ‘You should kiss _that_ brother now, I think.’

And he walked away, into the trees, as she did just that.

***

‘I’m sorry we are missing our moonful of honey.’ 

‘ _Honey-moon_ ,’ you said, grinning, as you half-carried her back to your house. Not every word in your language was quite right, yet. Or maybe she had just forgotten, the words drowned in that pool of mead in her stomach. It was still hard for you to drink, though you had eaten as much of the pig as you could without feeling like it would emerge from your stitches. It had been a fine feast, if rather shorter than a usual wedding. But then, there were more important things to be doing. Ragnar had waited long enough. ‘Anyway, I think you have managed enough mead for a while.’

She hummed and leant closer into you, before putting her hand on the door. 

‘Wait, _raf refr_.’ You tugged her back towards you. Her face was smeared with the same blood that yours was. Blood-twins.

‘Are you always going to call me that?’ A nightdream-voice. 

Your lips close to her ear. ‘Don’t you like it?’ 

‘Yes. I like it.’ She said something very slowly in her own tongue, sounding like she was already asleep. Maybe the same words. _Amber fox_. 

‘Then I will always call you it. From now until my last breath in this realm.’ And you scooped her up into your arms, even though it felt like both of your wounds would open again. ‘Or any realm.’ 

‘Wait -’ she said, her voice drifting. Her hand flopped down, a finger to the floor to where Ylva was standing, blinking up at you both. 

You sighed. ‘What was I thinking.’ Carefully, still holding Sansa, you crouched down enough so that Ylva could jump into Sansa’s arms, before stretching back up, kicking your door open, and walking your _raf refr_ and her little wolf over your doorway, past the spirits, who gathered round the three of you, whispering and laughing and threatening, as spirits always did, dark and light wound together as tightly as a braid. 

*** 

‘I don’t want you to leave.’ 

Aslaug’s cheek is on Ragnar’s chest. It has not always been easy between the two of them, but it is always like this at these moments, pressed together like two leaves in clasped hands. 

‘You won’t come back,’ she says. 

He walks his fingers up her arm. ‘I always come back.’ 

‘You won’t. Not this time.’ So sure. She has always been right. His snake-eyed son. Ivar. 

‘I have sons to see.’ He wonders about Bjørn, who will never marry Sansa now. Perhaps there are women in West-er-os he could marry. Perhaps there are more like her. She said her sister might be alive - 

‘And a wife,’ she says. 

He is already thinking of the sea, of the new land at the other side of it. Of great houses and the tall walls Sansa has spoken of. Rich people in strange clothes, fear and wonder in their faces. Perhaps they will sail to her North, and perhaps they will not. He is still the king, even if she is now his brother's wife.

' _Ragnar_.' 

‘Yes, and a wife,' he says. 

A sigh like a gust of wind on the other side of the mountain. ‘Please be careful.’ 

He pulls at her so that she rises from his chest, brings her eyes, heavy with slanting rainclouds, to his. ‘When has being careful ever got a Northman anywhere?’ 

*** 

Boats. Sansa was thinking of boats again. 

She had come here on a boat that had been smashed to pieces. Everyone had died. She had slept in the water, dreamt in the water. It could only be their gods, Odin and Aegir and Freyja, who had brought her here, to this place, which was her old North and her new North. Her home. She was fated. They had meant her to live in Kattegat, to be with these people, to be with this one person, who was behind her again now, in front of her, against her. 

Her head was rolling, her body rolling, and she was tired and happy and wanting to cry all at once. His mouth on all of her at once, which was impossible. 

‘Rollo,’ she said, and he looked up, and stilled his fingers. ‘I’m drowning.’ 

‘Then so am I,’ he said back, his voice disappearing into her throat. 

And they moved together again, the boat rocking, as it would tomorrow, when they all set sail on Floki’s boats, when she would stand with him on the prow, facing west, when they put themselves in the hands of the gods. 

**THE END  
(but there are two epilogues coming)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Yes. The end of Sansa Washed Ashore! Apart from two very all-important epilogues! I know this will frustrate some readers but in truth, I was always going to end right here, for NOW. It was always all about Sansa's development in this world. And I need a rest, and to work on some original fiction.**
> 
> **PS I am feeling utterly traumatised (please see beginning notes), so be nice! Ha ha.**
> 
> ***
> 
>  **Viking Wedding Planning Workshops** :
> 
> I have played fast and loose with wedding traditions. In truth, most weddings were contracts between families, the woman was owned, and – FUCK that shit! This is fanfic, and the show-Vikings are all modern about it, and – yeah. Can’t do it. Haha.
> 
> The wedding ceremony was the last occasion when a woman would ever be allowed to wear her hair loose. The groom entrusted a sword to the bride for the birth of their first son; you might remember that Floki dug a sword up for his own wedding – ancestral swords were often dug up from family member’s graves for ceremonies. 
> 
> The grooms would often carry a hammer to represent Thor’s strength in their union.
> 
> The _gyðja_ (pronounced ‘gotha’) is the priestess for the ceremony. A male priest was called a _gyði_.
> 
> [Rollo’s sword inspiration is here!](http://www.castlekeep.co.uk/gallery.asp?galleryid=206) I met the dude who makes these swords at New Year! 
> 
> [Sansa’s sword inspiration is here!](http://www.castlekeep.co.uk/gallery.asp?galleryid=212)
> 
> ***
> 
> This is the Old Norse version of the runic charm inscription I found for the wedding rings:
> 
> Mun þú mik,  
> man ek þik.  
> Unn þú mér,  
> ann ek þér.
> 
> ‘Remember me,  
> I remember you.  
> Love me,  
> I love you’.
> 
> [And Sansa’s torc inspiration!](http://www.craftycelts.com/Jewelry/Bracelets/Celtic_Fox_Bracelet.html)
> 
> Wedding celebrations often lasted all week. Autumn was a popular season after the harvest when plenty of food was available, but summer was also popular. Honey for mead which the couple drank together was collected during the summer months. Enough mead was gathered for a month-long period known as the 'honey-moon.' 
> 
> Doorways were believed to be portals to other worlds and spirits were thought to gather around them. It was a bad omen for the bride to trip crossing over the threshold is why the groom carried her over. The next morning the groom presents his bride with the Morning Gift-Keys to the various locks of his house. 
> 
> ***
> 
> A _seiðstafr_ is the staff that a vǫlva, the female seer or ‘wand-carrier’ (NB there were not many male ones; it is a bit of an anomaly in the show), would hold, and which Ragnar gives to the seer as a goodbye present. Graves with important seers were found with fine, tall wands, often made with bronze at the top and gemstones.
> 
> When Rollo mutters of bridges and ninth worlds, he is referring to Hel, the idea being that he is worried that he would not go to Valhalla after being attacked in such a way.
> 
>  **Vikings’ Medical Journal** :
> 
> Surgery was naturally rather rudimentary. Healers would often feed leeks to warriors who were wounded in the stomach – if they then smelt of leeks, the wound had deeply pierced the stomach. In Wells Tower’s awesome Vikings/noir-themed short story ‘Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned,’ they use onion porridge. Nice!


	45. Epilogue One

[](http://imgur.com/z3pcAVC)

**Norse colonization of North America**  
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.  
This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2015)

[[ _ **Part of a series on European colonization of the Americas**_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonization_of_the_Americas)]

The Norse colonization of the Americas began as early as the 8th century AD, when [Vikings](http://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/02/24/arts/24VIKINGS1_SPAN/24VIKINGS1-articleLarge.jpg) explored and settled areas of the North [ Atlantic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean), including the northeastern fringes of [North America](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America).

**Contents [hide]**

• 1 Norse Markland
    
    
         o	  1.1 Eastern and Southern Sites
    
    
         o	  1.2 Floki’s voyage
    
    
         o	  1.3 The Tale of Ragnar’s Sons and Ragnar’s death

• 2 Norse Vinland
    
    
         o	 2.1 Identity of Sassa

 **Norse Markland [edit]**  
Main article: _History of North America, early colonization_

According to [The Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_Ragnar_Lodbrok) ([Old Norse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse): _Ragnars saga Loðbrókar_ ), Norsemen first settled in North America in 799. There is no special reason to doubt the authority of the information that the sagas supply regarding the very beginning of the settlement, but they cannot be treated as primary evidence for the history of Norse North America because they embody the literary preoccupations of writers and audiences in medieval Denmark and Iceland that are not always reliable. [1]

[Ragnar Lodbrok](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/444368646064705536/agfX7G6o.jpeg) allegedly explored the uninhabited southwestern coast of Greenland with a migration fleet of 40 ships. He made plans to entice settlers to the area, even purposefully choosing the name Greenland to attract potential colonists. However, the harsh climates drove him and his ships further west, with 23 ships arriving at the North American coast, where they settled at [Markland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markland) (‘land of forests’), now thought to be part of the Labrador coast. 

Included amongst his travelling companions was [Rollo](http://cimg.tvgcdn.net/i/r/2015/04/14/e5d22c96-499d-40b2-a2ba-fb0b8b70303f/thumbnail/1300x867/ebb341e7b931c9821a1206b97989030e/150414-news-vikings-standen.jpg), his brother; there is some confusion as to whether this was [Rollo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo), also known as Hrolf the Ganger, later Duke of Normandy. The discrepancy in dates would further suggest that Ragnar’s saga is, at least in part, fictionalized. Sources both in the sagas and artwork found in archeological digs at sites in Labrador point to a wife of high standing, [Sassa](http://photos.vanityfair.com/2014/05/05/5366dece743dbe7c036773f5_sansa-got-405.jpg), also referred to as Amber Fox ([ _raf refr_](http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/REF)) and [Blóðughadda](http://mythology.wikia.com/wiki/Bl%C3%B3%C3%B0ughadda) due to her strikingly red hair.

** Eastern and Southern Sites [edit] **

At its peak, the colony consisted of two settlements with a population of 1,000: the Eastern, initially with Ragnar, Rollo and Sassa; and the Southern, led by the Norse shieldmaiden [_Ladgerda_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagertha), or [Lagertha](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/38200000/Vikings-Lagertha-Season-3-Official-Picture-vikings-tv-series-38233572-7360-4912.jpg), and [Bjørn Ironside](http://40.media.tumblr.com/40f8f6d0f907ca182da0e00bf20ed86e/tumblr_nkpxm1Vo7v1u3wveao2_1280.jpg), or [_Bjǫrn Járnsíða_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_Ironside), who later became the leader of the [Munsö](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Muns%C3%B6) clan in Denmark. At least 250 farms have been identified by archeologists between the two settlements. Markland had a [bishopric](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese) and exported furs, rope, sheep and cattle hides.

According to the sagas (‘Ragnar’s Saga’ and ‘Saga of The Two Wolves’), there were conflicts between the Norsemen and the indigenous peoples on many occasions with graves at both sites found containing the [penannular](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_brooch) brooches particular to the Viking culture. Archeological experts have been baffled by the small amount of [Christian](http://image-cdn.zap2it.com/photogallery/images/zap-vikings-season-2-photos-20140224-047) artefacts found at the Eastern site, with some concluding that they had been kept from raids to England some years before. A scrap of parchment that appears to be a copy of the early English sacred poem, [Caedmon’s Hymn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A6dmon%27s_Hymn), suggests that the Norsemen were not only interested in raiding for monetary value.

** Floki’s voyage (802) [edit] **

A Norseman from the same area of [Kattegat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kattegat), in what is now [Denmark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark), [Floki](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/38200000/Vikings-Floki-Season-3-Official-Picture-vikings-tv-series-38232488-4912-7360.jpg) (who may or may not be [Flóki Vilgerðarson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrafna-Fl%C3%B3ki_Vilger%C3%B0arson), the famed boatman), sailed with a crew of 60 men to Newfoundland and spent the following winter at Ragnar’s camp, according to the sagas, his boat having become lost during Ragnar's first expedition. In the spring, after religious disagreements with the indigenous people, Floki attacked nine of the them who were sleeping under three skin-covered canoes. The ninth victim escaped and soon came back to the Norse camp with a force. Floki was killed by an arrow that succeeded in passing through the barricade. Although brief hostilities ensued, the Norse explorers remained.

** The Tale of Ragnar’s Sons and Ragnar’s death [edit] **

Acccording to The Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, Ragnar left the camp in 807 to return to Kattegat. In [The Tale of Ragnar’s Sons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_Ragnar%27s_Sons). Ragnar's sons grew up and in order to show themselves the equals of their father, they warred far and wide. They conquered [Zealand](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealand), [Reidgotaland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reidgotaland) (here Jutland), [Gotland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotland), [Öland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96land) and all the small islands. Ragnar then raided England again.

When King [Ella](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86lla_of_Northumbria) of [Northumbria](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Northumbria) learnt of the pillaging army, he mustered an overwhelming force and defeated Ragnar's army. Finally, Ragnar was taken prisoner and thrown into a snake pit. 

**Norse Markland [edit]**

The sagas tell of another settlement at [Vinland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland) (‘the land of wine'), with [Rollo and Sassa](http://zoesong.deviantart.com/art/Rollo-and-Sansa-539255232) and their family, moving on from the Eastern settlement. There is an amusing tale of a man called Torstein living in Vinland, drunk, on what the saga describes as "wine-berries." Squashberries, gooseberries, and cranberries all grew wild in the area.

It appears that relations between Norsemen and the indigenous people were more peaceable here. The two sides [bartered](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter) with furs and [gray squirrel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_squirrel) skins for milk and red cloth, which the natives tied around their heads as a sort of headdress. Norse graves were found at [‘L’Anse aux Meadows’](http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index.aspx) including a [ship burial](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_burial) containing only one elderly couple, buried facing each other. The couple appeared to be of noble birth, with many fine bronze jewels and an unusual twin-headed [wolf torc](http://www.celticrevival.com/cr_graphics/products/jewelry/torcs_bangles/bt01.jpg), along with several finely-made swords.

It appears that wolves were highly-valued in this Viking society; though no evidence has ever been found at Scandinavian excavation sites, bones of [Eurasian wolves](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_wolf) (a subspecies of the grey wolf) were also found at the Vinland site, in what appears to have been small burial mounds. 

** Identity of Sassa **

Many Norse scholars have puzzled over the exact identity of Sassa (‘divine beauty’ in Old Norse), with no clear consensus being reached. In the Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok and the lesser-known Saga of the Two Wolves, she is a character somewhere between a goddess and a woman, though is not found in any other poetic source, such as the [Poetic Edda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetic_Edda). Much of the latter saga has been lost, but Icelandic professor and poet [Kæja Málgeirdottir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/profile) managed to decipher some small parts, including lines that read ‘Let Sassa Stark’s story be written here’. She appears to have not originally been from Scandinavia, but was a princess from a ‘foreign, far-land.’

The most compelling evidence outside the sagas comes from a preserved set of papers written in a language as yet unidentified, but which includes what appears to be a place name. This place name has also been found on a map that seems to be an 8th century vision of what is now the [United Kingdom](https://soimovedbacktolondon.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/game-of-thrones-uk-map.png), though it is mysteriously labelled ‘Westuross’ (the map is now displayed in the [Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Museum](http://www.lbmcoc.ca/Content.aspx?id=636a2bff-880e-4684-985f-8d8a634468d3), Labrador). 

**See also [edit]**  
• [Settlement of the Americas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas)  
• [Timeline of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact)

** Footnotes [edit] **

1\. Nor are fanfiction authors, to be honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend clicking on some of the links. It's a bit pot luck, but...


	46. Epilogue Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [AN AWESOME PICTURE PRESENT FOR ALL SWA READERS FROM ZOESONG!](http://zoesongs.tumblr.com/post/120590865057/rollo-and-sansa-as-imagined-in-swimmingfoxs?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma)

It is a strange life. A life that has lasted longer than you, who reads these words of mine, shall ever live. Centuries turned like wheels of stone, wheels of wood, wheels of bronze.

Come closer.

I do not need to see. I hear all. The gods flutter in my ears like dragonflies. They ghost about my face. They are young dog-gods, and battle-gods. Gods of song and gods of strong spirits. Moon gods. Gods from the dark corners of all the realms. 

The gods tell me what they see in the future. Sometimes it is only what they wish for, and sometimes I make it true. Sometimes it is already written.

The girl-of-many-gods, the girl-of-two-worlds, the girl-who-sees-wolf.

She haunts me. Her paths haunt me. A season ago I told her she had two paths in her future. This remains true. One she has already travelled on, to a great land, and yet – there is another she travels on, at the same time. Why should she not? 

Girl-of-two-worlds. Girl-of-two-paths. The gods control her fate.

You are not listening. I will tell you one last time.

This very moment, she nears this second place, this place of troubles, of men who fight with men when much greater danger is near. A place new to us, but not to her. The place of her birth.

This _West-er-os_.

Now. Lick my hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **STAY TUNED FOR ‘RAGNAR IN WESTEROS’! Probably.**
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone! A big thank you to Jillypups for the initial Rollo-inspiration, to she and HeyYouWithTheFace for looking at some chapters and all-round encouragement; and a very big one to ZoeSong for editing the shit out of later chapters and giving me loads of detailed ideas and discourse. To all the regular commenters for their support and great ideas – you are fabulous and constantly fed me. I mean, the seer. I mean, me. Etc.


	47. Author's Note

Hello subscribers to this story! This is just a cheeky note to say that a new story has been started. It is called Ragnar in Westeros. For those that were bored of waiting. :)

swimmingfox  
xxx

**Author's Note:**

> So this only works if you've seen Game of Thrones AND Vikings. UM. Go watch Vikings if you haven't already, it's super-awesome!


End file.
